San Giovanni Fuoricivitas

San Giovanni Fuoricivitas (also spelled Fuorcivitas) is a Romanesque religious complex in Pistoia, Tuscany, central Italy. The adjective fuoricivitas (a mix of Italian and Latin meaning "outside the city") refers to the fact that, when it was founded during the Lombard rule in Italy, the complex was located outside the city walls.

No traces remain of the original Lombard edifice.

The first document mentioning the church dates to 1119, when the church was described by Bishop Ildebrand as "nearly in ruins". The current building was most likely built soon afterward. The works lasted until 1344.

The church was severely damaged by the Allied bombings during World War II, and was later restored.

The appearance of the edifice is mostly defined by its northern side, originally parallel to now disappeared walls. The southern side faces the cloister, while the apse side and the façade are barely visible due to nearby structures. The northern side has most of the external decorations, including a rich portal with a sculpted architrave depicting the "Last Supper, signed and dated (1166) by the master Gruamonte. The pattern of the wall is typical of other buildings in Pistoia, and inspired by the contemporary Pisan Romanesque: it features rows of small arcades on small or blind columns with small windows and lozenges inscribed within the arches. The stones used, white and green in color, are respectively marble and serpentine from Prato.

During the last medieval enlargement, the church received its current plan with a single hall and a rectangular apse, inglobating the former northern wing of the cloister. What remains of the latter, dating to the 12th century, is today the only example in Pistoia of a Romanesque structure in mixed stone and brickwork construction. The small columns are in stone, decorated with capitals featuring heads of lions and oxen, while the arches and the walls are in brickwork. In the 14th century it received a second floor with a loggia.

...
Wikipedia