The Co-cathedral of the SS. Salvatore in Montalcino

Church of S. Egidio

Continuing along the town’s main street, Via Matteotti, we arrive in front of the church of Sant’Egidio.
The current church was built in 1325 to replace the original early medieval one, built in the eleventh century on the spot where the Rocca (fort) now stands. To build the fort, the Sienese decided to tear down the old church and rebuild it near the Town Hall; for this reason, it is called “the church of the Sienese” and bears Siena’s coat of arms, a black and white shield, on its façade,
The interior is a simple hall church which preserves traces of the earlier church in the small apse. On the right is a detached fresco taken from the chapel of the Madonna of the Plain, dating to the fourteenth century, showing the Virgin and Child with saints. Over the right-hand altar in the nave is a seventeenth-century painting by Francesco Cozza presenting Saint Joachim and Saint Anne adoring the Virgin and Child in glory.