The Church of San Leone in Pistoia, situated in the homonymus square, is one of the most important and unknown examples of baroque art, for which reason is also called “Cappella Sistina Pistoiese” because of its magnificent frescos.
The origins of the building go back to 1379 when it was seat of an oratory by the congregation of secular devotees from Pistoia’s Spirito Santo. The oratory first occupied the space of the present-day nave, then the congregation’s prestige and economic fortunes grew over the centuries to the point that, in the eighteenth century, the property was enlarged with the purchase of adjacent lands. Following this annexation, in the 1700s the confrères decided to enlarge the church’s structure and decorate it again in order to make it richer and closer to the baroque style distintictive of that time. Firstly the work was entrusted to the Pistoian architect Raffaello Ulivi, and afterward, between 1753 and 1764, Vincenzo Meucci, the undisputed and very successful protagonist of 18th-century Florentine painting, worked there, alongside Giuseppe Del Moro.
