The Cathedral

The Cathedral, entitled to Saint Martin, was built in the fourteenth century on a pre-existing church and restored several times between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Cathedral rises at the end of a large flight of steps and it presents a facade divided into three parts by pillars and a big rose-window by Lorenzo Riccomanni.

Inside it is possible to admire three bass-relieves on three portals portraying the Crucifixion, the Deposition and the Resurrection. The middle portal is also surmounted by the Pope Leone X’s ensign.

On the right side of the facade it is possible to admire a bass-relief by Stagio Stagi portraying Saint John Baptist who is placed between two shields representing the cities of Pietrasanta and Florence.

On the left side of the facade rises the unfinished belfry whose building was started during sixteenth century by Donato Benti.

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Inside the Cathedral, formed by three aisles divided by columns, was entirely painted by Luigi Ademollo (1764-1849) and it is rich of suggestive works by different artists.

The marble-made pulpit, on the right side, is rich of bass-relieves pictures such as that one by Bertocco and Filippo Casoni (1733-1811) portraying the Evangelists and those ones portraying the Bishop Saint Martin and Saint Martin with a poor man.

On the altars are placed several paints: the Resurrection and Our Lady of the Rosary painted by Matteo Rosselli (1578-1650), the Circumcision by Jacopo Vignali (1592-1664) and the Nativity by Pietro Dandini (1646-1712).

On the main altar it is possible to admire two valuable marble-made candlesticks made between 1591 and 1594 by Orazio Bergamini and a seventeenth-century crucifix by Ferdinando Tacca who also made the two bronze angels placed on a balustrade.