Church of Santa Chiara in Monte San Savino

The Church of Santa Chiara (Saint Clare) in Monte San Savino began as an addition to the adjoining convent of the Poor Clare nuns, who, around 1659, obtained permission to build over the last surviving section of the ancient keep’s moats. Completed in 1661, the church was in convent use until 1793, when the Clarisse institute was subject to grand ducal suppressions.

Purchased by the Galletti family, the building was gradually enriched with valuable and important works of art. Among the works placed here, the Altarpiece with St. Lawrence, St. Sebastian and St. Roch and the glazed altarpiece with the Madonna and Child and Saints Agatha, Lucy, Benedict, and Romuald, both by Andrea Sansovino and dating from the 1590s; the two altarpieces by della Robbia glazed or partially glazed with Adoration of the Shepherds and Miracle of the Snow and St. Anthony the Abbot, from the same period.

Later passed to the Gamurrini family of Arezzo, the church was further embellished with detached fragments of frescoes depicting Prophet Jeremiah, Prophet Writing, St. Peter and St. Paul, from the destroyed Church of San Rocco in Arezzo.

On the high altar is the canvas with Presentation in the Temple and Saints Nicholas, Savino and Clare, painted by Salvi Castellucci in 1663. It is the only work made specifically for this church. Under the high altar there is also the burial of a mysterious character, referred to by popular folklore as St. Theophilus, more likely a Spanish knight who lived in the 1500s and linked to Pope Julius III. Under the right altar, on the other hand, a wooden Nativity scene from the 18th century is preserved.

Completing the building are the choir loft with organ and the small chapel-oratory richly frescoed of the early 1800s with grotesques and Instruments of the Passion.