The church of Santo Stefano at Magazzini, known as ‘alle Trane’, currently constitutes the most notable example of religious Romanesque architecture on the Island of Elba. It was built in the 12th century and has an accurate masonry face with regular rows of ivory white Alberese. The interior is in the Romanesque style, simple with a single nave with an apse and a wooden trussed roof. It is the only Romanesque church on Elba from the Pisan era where religious services are still held.
Description of the Church of Santo Stefano
The church, pertaining to the disappeared settlement of the Trane, has been restored after years of ruin, and is similar in structure and decorative apparatus to Pisan Romanesque architecture. The façade is divided at the bottom by blind arches on pilasters and ended by a tympanum highlighted by cornices. The decoration, which follows neo-ancient patterns on the side, instead takes up repertoires extraneous to the Pisan culture in the apse, decorated with hanging arches on whose corbels appear zoomorphic motifs and protomes.
How to reach the church in Magazzini
The church is located in le Trane, an area upstream of the Magazzini, from Portoferraio (5 km away) we follow the road to Bagnaia.