Museum of Sacred Art of the Collegiate Church of San Lorenzo

The Museum of Sacred Art of the Collegiate Church of San Lorenzo in Montevarchi is housed in the rooms adjoining the Collegiate and presents a documentation of the panorama of figurative arts that flourished in the village, in particular those commissioned by the Fraternity of the Holy Milk, an institution linked to the church of San Lorenzo. The objects come from the collegiate church of San Lorenzo and from the church of Sant'Andrea a Cennano. On display are precious illuminated manuscripts and liturgical furnishings, including a sixteenth-century chiselled silver Cross made in the workshop of Benvenuto Cellini, as well as the masterpiece of fine goldsmithing of the Reliquary of the Sacred Milk, dating back to the seventeenth century.The most important work is the Tempietto Robbiano, a masterpiece from the end of the fifteenth century, reconstructed as it was inside the church before being dismantled at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which held the relic of the milk of the Madonna, a drop of crystallized milk that fell from the lips of the infant Jesus during the flight into Egypt. The Tempietto, more properly the Chapel of Santa Maria del Latte, was decorated by Andrea della Robbia with "marzacotti della sua Maestranza" between 1595 and 1598; it includes the bas-relief of the Consegna della Reliquia, originally placed on the façade of the Collegiata. The chapel of the relic was constituted by an altar leaning against the counter-façade and protected by a canopy leaning against the wall of the altar; through an iron grate, the altar was in communication with a small room behind, popularly called "Stanzino delle Reliquie", where the Holy Milk was kept. As we have already said, dismantled during the restoration work carried out in 1709 by Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, in 1970 the reliefs were reassembled on an architectural structure that faithfully reproduces the original. In the Museum you can also admire a relief by Della Robbia representing the delivery of the relics and among the many liturgical objects the processional cross by the Florentine goldsmith Piero di Martino Spigliati of the 16th century.