The Church of S. Andrea overlooks the small square of Stignano and attracts the eye with its bell tower a bit ‘squat, lightened by windows and mullioned windows.

Exterior

The exterior is simple, with its stone facade and Romanesque style, although there are several remakes of the later period such as the portal with tympanum probably of the seventeenth century and the oculus window.
During the visit of the outside you can still recognize, although closed, the so-called “door of the dead” a particular access that was used to bring the corpses to the nearby cemetery, whose jambs are decorated with plant motifs carved in stone.

Even the bell tower has undergone several renovations over the centuries, so that it probably rests on what was once a watchtower, rearranged to accommodate the bell.

Interior

The interior of the church has a single nave. Its walls (originally stone) were plastered in the 16th century and enriched by altars with stucco decorations during the 18th century.
Fragments of frescoes of the fourteenth century surprise visitors as soon as they enter all the altars house paintings of particular value.
On the first altar on the right is the “Virgin enthroned with the child between St. Andrew and St. John the Baptist“, dating back to the early ‘500 and probably performed in an artistic environment near Bernardino del Signoraccio, Pistoiese also engaged in the Church of San Pietro in Borgo a Buggiano.

The details in the interior

The high altar, built in the seventeenth century and enriched with decorations in fake marble in the eighteenth century, houses the beautiful panel depicting the “Resurrection of Christ” by Francesco Curradi. Going beyond the typical style of mannerism, the artist represented in this work the thought of spiritual renewal of the Counter-Reformation.
On the left there are two tables, on the same altar, coupled within a single frame. There are depicted a “Nativity” at the top and a “Massacre of the Innocents” at the bottom, both at the Tuscan school of the ‘500.
Inside there is also a marble holy water font of 1540 with a fine decoration with leaves and festoons, lion’s feet at the base, and the baptismal fontwhose basin is decorated with cherub heads and the wooden lid shows the date of its creation: 1613.