San Frediano, Lucca

Another fine Romanesque church, dedicated to a famous bishop of Lucca, with a Byzantine mosaic of the Last Judgement on the plain façade, built from stone taken from the amphitheatre. Just inside the door on the right, the 12th century font shows Pharaoh's army as Norman knights pursuing Moses into the Red Sea. In the left aisle Amico Aspertini painted the Arrival of the Volto Santo in Lucca. It has an archaic quality with real pieces of gold stuck to the robes and horses' bridles. Further up the aisle Jacopo della Quercia carved a polyptych of the Madonna and Child with Saints in a flowing Gothic style.