Tempio di Santa Maria alla Vittoria o Santo Stefano della Vittoria Foiano

A few kilometers from the historic center, towards the Pozzo della Chiana, stands the sixteenth -century temple of Santo Stefano della Vittoria isolated.

The temple was built by Cosimo de 'Medici, Duke of Florence, to perennial memory of the victory obtained by the Florentine army commanded by Gian Giacomo Medici, marquis of Marignano, on the Sienese one, commanded by Piero Strozzi, in the so -called battle of Scannagallo who marked the defeat of the Sienese army and the definitive submission of the Republic of Siena to the Florentine domain. The Temple is dedicated to S. Stefano Papa owner of the festival of 2 August, the day of the battle, in honor of which Duke Cosimo also established a chivalric order of Marina for the defense of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Together with the Temple -Sacrario the order of S. Stefano also obtained some farms from the Valdichiana. The church was donated in the early seventeenth century to the fraternity of S. Maria di Foiano with the obligation to maintain a chaplain to officate some masses on pre -established dates, one of which on the occasion of July 28 to honor the fallen Foianesi who died in the conquest of Foiano by Piero Strozzi.

Consequently to the suppression of fraternity following the provisions of Pietro Leopoldo (1785) the Church passes to the Municipality of Foiano.

Finished to build in 1572 was built on a project by Vasari (Procacci, 1961) and is attributed by the tradition to Bartolomeo Ammannati. Elegant building in octagonal brick is surmounted by a ribbed dome covered with lead slabs and adorned at the top by a lantern. The exterior presents smooth brickboats in bricks redeemed by large corner pilasters in serene stone and alternatively open with exeds surmounted by oculi and doors with triangular eardrums surmounted by windows.

The entrance door with curved tympanum, facing the Battaglia Theater, is adorned with a Medici coat of arms in a travertine with the Grand Ducal crown of Tuscany. The very simple interior has a single central chapel hosting the stone altar with iconostasis in host three tables by Orazio Porta. The greatest table is preserved with "S. Girolamo crowned by an angel" and surmounted by the figure of Christ between two saints and the Virgin (1572) which, damaged in 1972 for the fall of lightning, is now visible again after the restoration.