Inhabitants in 1991: 34.444
The
territory of Campi extends for 28,62 square kilometres on the plains of
Val di Bisenzio. It was a Medieval Podesta Office and became Seat of
the community in 1700 with Calenzano, Signa, Quaracchi and Montemurlo
under its jurisdiction; it reached its present day dimensions in 1928
with the aggregation of a part of the suppressed municipality of Brozzi.
An agricultural village it arose in the Dark Ages on marshy ground,
its land reclaim seems to have been done in the VIII century by the Benedictine
monks, Campi was noted for the first time in a privilege of Carlo
Magno in 780; and here, in XII century, when the power over the place
was exercised by the Fiorentino Episcopate and the Aberti Counts of
Prato, an armed fortress was built by the family dei Mazzinghi,
presumed vassals of the Aberti. The business of the castle, entered
rapidly into the Firenze orbit, was tightly connected to that of
the nearby city: it suffered in the course of XIII century the
bloody consequences of the struggle between the Guelfi and Ghibellini
(tradition has it that the antecedent of the division of the two Fiorentine
groups came right to Campi, in the castle of the Guilfi Mazzinghi), the
attack by Castruccio Castracani in 1325, of Giovanni da Oleggio in
1352 and lastly the conquest, the sackage and the grave destruction
inflicted by the Spanish in 1512, when they marched on Firenze
to restore the Lordship of the Medici. In modern times, Campi assumes
the characteristic of a hardworking agricultural village: the fortress
was transformed in XVII century into a farm and the number of inhabitants
diminished.
At the beginning of the 1800s part of the antique fortification and
the Medieval bridge over the Bisenzio was knocked down, with
the justification of the need to give a more rational urbanistic aspect
to the village. Combative community of the social reclamation since the
last century, Campi made a notable contribution to the resistance:
one of its young men, Lanciotto Ballerini, was decorated with the
Memorial Gold Medal; thirteen men were shot in reprisals by the
Germans in the district of San Piero a Ponti in August 1944. It was the
birthplace of fra' (Monk) Ristoro (died 1284) designer of notable
Gothic buildings like the antique church of Santa Marie Novella at Firenze
and that of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Roma.
Places to visit: S. Biagio, church with 1400s
portico, conserved inside are precious works of art. |
Historical info reproduced upon authorization of Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e Giuridici
Translated by Ann Mountford |