CONTACT

ADDRESS: Piazza San Pietro Somaldi

PHONE: 0583 490530

EMAIL: info@museocattedralelucca.it

WEBSITE: http://www.museocattedralelucca.it

The Church of San Pietro Somaldi is located in the homonymous square East of the amphitheatre near the medieval city walls. Lombard origins of the Church are witnessed by the same name which derives from Sumualdo, founder of the early Church in 763. The building was rebuilt in the late 12TH and saw the end of the work in the 14th century with the top of the Bell Tower and the apse in brick.

The façade dates from the second half of the 13th century and presents the typical traits of the lucchese architecture. Built in sandstone with sparse white listature ends with a blind arcade that has swollen and foliated capitals and overturned. Of great interest is the central portal whose lintel depicts the keys to Peter, by Guido Bigarelli da Como in 1248.

Puccini Itineraries

The church houses the organ played by Maestro Giacomo Puccini before he moved to Milan. The organ is a very fine 17th-century instrument, built by a famous organ builder from Lucca, Domenico Cacioli, which has always aroused admiration in all organists who have played it.

Great-grandfather Antonio, grandfather Domenico and then father Michele had already served regularly as organists and chapel masters at San Pietro Somaldi. On the organ, the young Giacomo left his signature, still visible today, on the case of the instrument, and it is also certain that he was able to play it even after the restoration in the early 1900s, for which he himself suggested entrusting the work to the restorer Filippo Tronci, who did an admirable job preserving the original materials as far as possible. Today, when the restoration and recovery of historical organs is done with more care than in the past, we can probably also be grateful to Puccini for having saved a precious instrument.