San Biagio, Montepulciano

[1] The same plan, taken from Filippo Brunelleschi's works, was used for the original design by Bramante and Michelangelo for St. Peter's Basilica, as well as for the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Todi, of uncertain paternity.

The late Renaissance building was constructed on the site of a pre-existing Palaeochristian pieve dedicated to St. Mary and subsequently to St. Blaise.

In the early 16th century only remains existed of the pieve, including a wall with a fresco of Madonna with Child and St. Francis, from a 14th-century Sienese painter.

The main façade, whose scheme is repeated (with some minor changes) on the two side ones, is divided into two sectors by a large entablature featuring a frieze with triglyphs and metopes which runs for the whole perimeter of the edifice.

The façade is flanked by the multifloor bell tower, with numerous decorative elements, which ends in a pyramidal cusp.