Pieve di Crespiano

The Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta is located along the road to Comano, in Crespiano. Pilgrims and merchants passed through here on their way to the Abbey of Linari and to Emilia. As a plaque walled inside the sacristy indicates, the parish church was rebuilt in 1079 by master builder Ottone, taking the Romanesque appearance of which it still retains traces. The parish church was modified in the Renaissance period; later the trusses were replaced with cross vaults and the church took its present Baroque appearance. The three-aisled interior divided into four bays by round arches is punctuated by cylindrical columns with chiseled capitals for the purpose of adhering plaster from the various renovations, which led to the replacement of the original wooden trusses with masonry vaults. These changes also transformed its exterior where ramparts were built to reinforce the walls.

The central chapel ends with a rectangular presbytery containing the choir, a Baroque altar of Ligurian manufacture with an altarpiece of the Assunta by the painter Luigi Battistini from Fivizzano, and the right altar with a Calvary attributed to the Master from Virgoletta. The walls are lined with adjoining altars. 

Stone houses gather around the parish church building as if to protect it from the waters of the Taverone, which flows there sunken among the last Apennine spurs.