Inhabitants in 1991: 5.922
The
municipal territory of Rufina extends for 45,68 square kilometres in the
Val di Sieve in a hilly zone. The origin of the municipality is recent,
having been instituted in 1915 with the separation from the municipality
of Pelago for the most part on the slopes of la Sieve.
In the Medieval era the jurisdiction over Rufina's municipal
territory was divided between the Episcopate of Fiesole and the Guidi
Counts. Even if the place name is recorded for the first time in a
document of 1090, the origin of the town as agglomerate of a
certain importance is not earlier than the middle of the XVIII century.
In fact at the start of the 1700s the canalisation of the Rufina stream
was started on the tract which runs into the Sieve, it was completed
by an initiative by the Friars of Poggiolo; a little later there were
subsequent land reclaim interventions on the territory on which
the greatest part of the town stands today.
The
town then had new impulse to take advantage of the commercial opportunities
offered by the Firenze-Roma railway, built in 1859, and
growing further with the opening of the railway line Pontassieve-Borgo
San Lorenzo inaugurated in 1912. In 1913 by now well developed
and in good condition economically, Rufina, until then a district of the
municipality of Pelago, crowned its aspiration to become an autonomous
municipality managing to elect the majority of councillors from their
own town into the community council of Pelago and thus approving the request
enabling it to be submitted to the Firenze Prefect. If the capital has
relatively recent origins it has however ancient settlements in its
territory, like Turicchi, which in the Medieval era was Seat of a
feudal county which belonged to the Bishops of Fiesole, and Castiglioni,
whose parish church goes back to the XII century.
Places to visit: The Museum of the Vine and the Wine,
housed in the 1500 Poggio Reale villa. |
Historical info reproduced upon authorization of
Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e
Giuridici
Picture by Antonio Barletti
Translated by Ann Mountford
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