Church of Santa Flora and Lucilla

father ernesto balducci's places

BIOGRAPHY

HOLY ORDER

Thanks to the interest of a friend of his mother's originally from Santa Fiora, Domenico Bulgarini (writer, book agent and later also publisher) on November 12, 1934 Ernesto Balducci entered the 'Speranzinato,' the boarding school of the Scolopian fathers in Empoli. On September 12, 1937 he donned the religious habit in the Scolopian novitiate house in Finalborgo, and the following year, on September 25, he took his simple vows with the name Giacomo di Cristo Re (James of Christ the King). He was ordained a priest on August 26, 1945.

SANTA FIORA (GR)

The church is located a few meters from Balducci's birthplace. Given his deep connection to his hometown, it is not surprising that he chose to celebrate his first Mass here.

THE STUDIES

During his stay in the Italian interprovincial philosophical-theological studentate of the order of the Scolopians, he showed himself impatient with a spiritual formation marked by the cultivation of passive virtues (which educated to asceticism and obedience) and a primacy of piety over science pushed to the limit of a real distrust for a study that went beyond that provided by the school curricula. The seminary diaries attest to the intensity and determination of Balducci's effort to construct for himself an autonomous formative path, reworking in a personal way the contents of his readings (both literary and philosophical) and trying to fine-tune his own vision of the world in whose horizon to inscribe in an original way the meaning of his religious vocation.

QUOTE

E. Balducci, “La Mariologia viva”

«We cannot inherit from the past the Word of God stiffened in the forms of meditation with which it has been enriched: we must revisit it ourselves, in our own journey.»

MUST-SEE

Madonna della Cintola

In the Della Robbia altarpiece we can admire the Virgin giving the girdle to San Tommaso the Apostle as she is lifted up by angels. Attending the scene are a number of saints, including Santa Flora, who holds the palm, the symbol of her martyrdom. The predella depicts scenes from the life of Christ.

Trittico robbiano

The triptych with the Coronation of the Virgin, the Stigmata of San Francesco and Penitent San Girolamo is one of Andrea della Robbia's earliest works. It was made in the 1570s and is also an early record of Della Robbia's works in Bernardine monasteries.

Battesimo di Gesù con San Giovanni e gli Angeli

The baptismal font is the work of Andrea della Robbia. The colors of the glazed terracotta, white, blue, and teal, along with the abundance of detail, strike the attention of visitors for their beauty unchanged by time. Surrounding the baptism scene are reliefs of leaves and fruits, including the pomegranate, symbol of the Sforza family.