The Pieve di Zibana is mentioned for the first time in a document of 1230 as the chapel of Santa Maria Assunta “de Zubana” and was a stop on the road to Linari, an ancient route that connected Emilia and Lunigiana through the Lagastrello pass.
The building in local sandstone has a gabled façade and a central portal surmounted by a rectangular window in axis.
On either side of the portal there are two aedicules with epigraphs in white Carrara marble, while above the window there is a Majesty of 1681 representing the Madonna and Child Jesus and Saints, also in white marble.
The semicircular apse has regular square stone courses, with small sandstone crowning arches in which the heads of the Evangelists are engraved, with stone pilasters, resting on a projecting base. Above it is visible a cornice made of worked and shaped stone elements.
The bell tower, which preserves two bells dated 1513, stands on its right side in the presbytery area, with a square plan in roughly hewn limestone blocks.
The interior has a single nave, with two side chapels, one on each side, with a wooden truss roof and oak planking. Only the side chapels are plastered and painted in a soft yellow shade, while everything else is in exposed stone; the whole structure is made of local sandstone blocks.
The succession of construction events can be seen in the different materials used in the masonry: the grey-blue stone taken from an ancient local quarry makes it possible to identify, as parts of the original Romanesque construction that have been preserved to this day, almost the entire facade and part of the apse; the raising of the roof, the addition on the left facade, the two sides, the sacristy and the bell tower, were instead made a few centuries later with heterogeneous material of warmer colours.
The apse, very similar to that of the church of Santa Giuliana di Moragnano, is in part the result of heavy restoration work, with restoration work in grey stone carried out in the 20th century.
The church is dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta.
43025 Zibana
