Visit to the Angel of San Gennaro

Activities included

• guided tour of the parish church
• trail walk (7 km total)

Not included in the program

• tasting of local products and wines
• joelette rental
• anything not mentioned under "activities included"

Parking at the entrance to the village of San Gennaro in Capannori LU at 10am.

For people with disabilities, it is possible to rent a joelette with certified staff upon reservation.  Maximum 2 people with disabilities.

Tasting fee is to be paid separately on site.

Comfortable clothing and hiking boots for the trail walk are recommended.

€ 200 per group

The itinerary lasts 4 hours and includes a visit to the small village of San Gennaro located in the municipality of Capannori. The village is at an altitude of 250 meters above sea level, in a panoramic hilly area, and site of one of the most beautiful rural Romanesque parish churches in Lucca, dedicated to the patron saint of Naples. Following an eruption of the Vesuvius in 512, many of the residents fled to distant areas, and a group of people reached and settled in the territory of Lucca, dedicating the church to their patron saint, San Gennaro.

Inside this splendid medieval church, now completely restored, there is a very precious terracotta angel, attributed to the great master Leonardo da Vinci by the leading scholar of the Florentine artist, Carlo Pedretti. Others attribute it to the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, where Leonardo, Botticelli, and Domenico del Ghirlandaio trained, and which played an important role in the formation of these great Renaissance artists. There is also a very valuable twelfth-century (1162) pulpit with marble inlay work by Master Filippo, an excellent example of Romanesque art in the territory of Lucca. You then walk through the streets of the village to Palazzo Bove, a fifteenth-century stately mansion. Thanks to its position at the top of the village, it offers a magnificent view of the plain of Lucca and even parts of the territories of Pisa and Pistoia. You continue with your walk, approximately another 3 km, along a path that leads to the village of Petrognano. Here you stop for a tasting of local specialties at a farm, which produces extra-virgin olive oil, and where you can rest before returning to our starting point.