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Campiglia Marittima

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Inhabitants in 1991: 12.513

The municipality extends for 83,13 square kilometres on the extreme offshoot of the Metalliferous hill and on a strip of coastal plain. Designed by Pisa in 1200 capital of a vast captaincy, it was, for a long period, the principle centre of the High Maremma. Its present day aspect goes back to 1949, when the district of San Vincenzo was detached from it and constituted in autonomous municipality.

Land of the Etruscans, who were the first to take advantage of the mineral resources, Campiglia was recorded in 1004 in a document with which Count Gherardo II, of the family which was later called the Gherardesca, founded and donated with assets the male Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria di Serena in Val di Merse. In the following century, although the great lineage of Counts continued to exercise their Lordship together with diverse religious bodies, this authority became limited with the birth of the local municipal institution and even more so by the presence of the municipality of Pisa, since 1168, in the county in which Campigilia found itself. Annexed in 1406 to the Fiorentino State, it saw its important role of administrative and military stronghold confirmed. As such it lived through various warlike episodes, among which the most noted is perhaps the valiant resistance to Alfonso di Napoli (1447-48). Gravely declined in modern times, when the frequent epidemics and the recurring malaria brought it to a total deterioration of the environmental conditions, Campiglia returned to being the most important centre of the long tract of coastal Toscano in the 1800s.

Historical info reproduced upon authorization of Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e Giuridici
Translated by Ann Mountford


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