L'oratorio della Madonna del Piano a Sesto Fiorentino
The Oratorio della Madonna del Piano stands in the area of the new Science and Technology Centre of Florence University, in the municipality of Sesto Fiorentino. The first part of this study traces the history and life of the oratory within the territorial context of Sesto. Consequently, it addresses the subject of the fourteenth-century image of the Madonna and Child that was venerated here, the construction of the original tabernacle and that of the seventeenth-century chapel, analysing the historic, artistic and iconographic elements of the frescoes. The second part of the book recounts the history of devotion to the Madonna del Piano, and the results of a survey carried out in 2001 among the people of Sesto Fiorentino, with interviews on life in Val di Rose and on devotion to this sacred image during the 20th century. The work is concluded by a presentation of the restoration of the architectural structure and of that of the frescoes inside the oratory, carried out between 2000 and 2001.