Firenzuola hamlets

The large territory of Firenzuola has 27 hamlets, some entirely uninhabited and neglected:

• Bordignano lies in a pleasant and sunny position, with large chestnut woods.

• Brento Sanico today is uninhabited. In the town-planning scheme it's recognized like an excavation area of the "Firenzuola stone". Some holy objects with great historical and artistic value (among these a XII th century copper cross, with graffiti and some gilding tracks) give evidence of his antiquity.

• Bruscoli, open and pleasant hamlet near Roncobilaccio and Pian del Voglio tollhouses. In the past was within the Alberti's earldom of Vernio and Mangona, quoted by Dante Alighieri in the XXXII nd Inferno's canto, verses 55-56. There is a little but interesting museum, the "Museo storico etnografico", an initiative of the local Archaeological Group, an association recognized acknowledged by the Sovrintendenza of Firenze. The museum houses over one thousand objects: archaeological finds, tools of the peasant civilization, war surplus of the 2nd world war.

• Caburaccia, hamlet with a warm agritourism.

• Casanuova, sunny hamlet on the north slant of Castel Guerrino, is famous especially because, ten or more years ago, there was in the parish Church a
  wooden polychrome group of the XIVth century: "The sorrow on the dead Christ" now at the diocesan Museum of Santo Stefano al Ponte in Firenze.

• Castelvecchio is at the source of the Diaterna torrent, on the ridge of the Pietramala's Appennino. There is a place-name very interesting and significant in the vicinity, the "Fossa of Catilina" : according to an old tradition Lucio Sergio Catilina, an opponent of the senate oligarchy, conspirator denounced in the Roman Senate by Cicerone, died here.
  Today there are sites for the construction of the Fast Speed railway .
  

• Castiglioncello, once a little frontier castle with 3rd class customs, today it's totally abandoned and neglected. In 1821 grand-ducal soldiers stopped here for more than two months, in order "to watch the Tuscan frontier", because the "German" troops passed close when going to put down the Carbonari's rebellion in the Naples Kingdom, like it was agreed in the Lubiana's Congress.
  Some years ago here was filmed the movie "La linea gotica". This movie represented, without a great success, Italy at the Cannes festival.

• Castro San Martino, it's a little, pleasant village on the left of Santerno's springs, along the provincial road towards the Futa Pass.

• Coniale, near the Santerno river, is patronized by summer bathers, because it offers, near Pieve di Camaggiore, an exceptional natural "swimming pool" and a perfect "solarium" of withe and smooth stones.
  In the Pieve there's a valuable wooden Christ, polychrome sculpure of the XIIth century, today under restoration at the Florence Monuments and Fine Arts Agency.

• Cornacchiaia is an old hamlet, along the provincial road towards the Futa, with an interesting millenary parish founded, it seems, by St. Zanobi and rebuild by countess Matilde. Here was born in 1897 the writer Tito Casini, who founded, with Lisi, Giuliotti, Papini, Bargellini and others in 1929 "Il Frontespizio", a Florentine literary review.

• Covigliaio is an health and holiday resort, with excellent waters. Here stopped important men, like the Czar Nicola I of Russia, Carlo Alberto of Carignano, Pio IX, Walter Scott, Gordon Byron, Tyrone Power and the King Faruk.

• Filigare is a charming little village at the border with Emilia, near the sources of the Idice river. On the Granducato border it was important 2nd class customs and today there is the beautiful stone building, properly restored. The Tuscan poet Giosuè Carducci was on holiday here.
  

• Frena is a little hamlet plunged in an unpolluted environment with secular chestnuts and wide woods of oaks, hornbeams and beeches. It has a very old history, the name maybe was originated from the ancient Ligurian people Frenati, who settled here.

• Giugnola is splitted oddly into two parts from the boundary line between Tuscany and Emilia. Here was born the cardinal Antonio Bacci, very important Latin scholar, who translated into Cicerone's language the encyclicals of many Popes.

• Monti is a village near the border with Castel del Rio (Bologna), sloping toward the Santerno river with hard and steep crags, very sunny.

• In 1034 Giovanni Gualberto dei Visdomini founded at Moscheta an abbey, that became famous, where the monks of the Vallombrosiani order devoted themselves to give assistance to poor, sick persons and pilgrims. Today it's preserved from the initial period a cross, probably of the XIIth century, in gilded copper with graffiti; "many elements remind the Longobard and Carolingian art. The natural environment where are the abbey remains, is very beautiful and with fresh air.

• Peglio is a little hamlet on the south side of an hill, one mile and half from the Pietramala Fires and two miles from Pietramala and customs. Here was a fire like these (gas deposits), called "paradiso", perhaps because it never caused troubles.

• Piancaldoli is far away 25 Km from Firenzuola and it's near the Sillano river (Rivus Sillae) sources. It has an old history, it's remembered by Niccolò Machiavelli in his Istorie Fiorentine. It seems , so assert the inhabitants, that here was born on October 15 of 1608 Evangelista Torricelli, famous mathematician and physicist.

• Pietramala is a delightful summer health resort. His reputation is due to the "fires", the phenomenon, investigated with attention by Alessandro Volta, which was originated from gas exhalations. Today there're methane wells, with gas pump. Pietramala was one of the preferred places for the painter Telemaco Signorini, in the last twenty years of life.

• Rapezzo is an hamlet in an hill on the right side of the Santerno "on the last crag of a spur of the Appennino from the Campanara mountain. It has very few people.

• Rifredo "is on the steeply cambered Appennino", along the road that leads from Firenzuola, through the Giogo pass, to Firenze. Here was born Giovanni d'Andrea, eminent jurist who was a teacher at the University of Bologna and had as students Cino da Pistoia and Francesco Petrarca. Here Dino Campana and Sibilla Aleramo meet and had their first biblical acquaintance.

• S. Pellegrino was a graceful and pleasant hamlet along the road toward Imola, far 6 Km from Firenzuola, but today is wasted in an irresponsible manner by the building sites for the high speed railway. If we go away from the devastation sites, we can always find environments in which we can live and rest in the wide and magnificent chestnut woods.

• S. Pietro Santerno is a little village on the last south slope of the Coloreta Mountain "straddling the Santerno river that flows at his base". It seems that its inhabitants erected the Firenzuola castle, when in the 1332 was founded.

• Tirli was very important, because had a castle of the Ubaldini of Susinna. Today it has few people. It's on the main road from Coniale to Palazzuolo sul Senio.

• Traversa (or S. Iacopo at Castro) is an hamlet on the left bank of the Santerno, at its sources, in an hill relief, along the state road 65, near the Futa pass and at the foot of Sasso of Castro. It's a pleasant holiday resort. During the second world war stopped here first general Kesserling and after general Clark.

• Le Valli today is a sunny and charming village on a rise, surrounded by wide expanses of cultivated fields and meadows sloping down toward Santerno river and Diaterna stream. It's far away only few Km from Firenzuola, along the state road that lead to Casetta of Covigliaio. It seems that in 1464 was buried captain Ramazzotto Ramazzotti di Scaricalasino (Monghidoro) in its little church.

• Visignano is a little village barely peopled. In the parish church there are wide windows with the four evangelists and St. Giacomo and St. Cristoforo , works of the Chini kilns of Borgo San Lorenzo. It's a work of extraordinary artistic value.
  

© 1999 da Frazioni di Pier Carlo Tagliaferri