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Monsummano Terme

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Inhabitants in 1991: 18.228

The municipal territory of Monsummano, in the Valdinievole, extends for 32,77 square kilometres in the plains and hills of Monte Albano to the marshes of Fucecchio. Feudal centre, then Seat of Podesta office, it reached its present day aspect in 1775 when the two centres of Monsummano and Montevettolini, call the «Due Terre di Val di Nievole» (Two lands of the Valley of Nievole) became united in a single community.

The ancient settlement, the castle was erected on the summit of the hill where its suggestive ruins remain today, was until the beginning of the XII century feudal to the Maona Counts and owned by the Lucca Episcopate; in 1218 it was acquired by the municipality of Lucca and remained under its dominion until 1314 when for a brief period it was occupied by Firenze. Returning under the Lords of Lucca after the Fiorentina defeat at the battle of Montecatini, on the death of Castruccio Castracani (1328) Monsummano, together with the Valdinievole castles entered into the orbit of the Fiorentino State, which in 1331 approved the statutes and sent them a Podesta. In 1408 the municipality was put under the Podesta office of Montevettolini, while from 1430 the inhabitants depended on the Podesta of Buggiano and thus remained in the Mediceo State. In the second half of the 1500s the life of the castle was transferred to the town below the slopes but the true development of the village, inhabited by shepherds and farm workers on the edge of the marshes, came about in the 1600s around the church erected to celebrate the phenomena destined to influence the economic activity of the location: the emergence of the thermal waters which became well know and well frequented in the 1800s. During the war of Liberation, on 23 August 1944, the Fucecchio mashes, at Cintolese, a district of Monsummano, the German troops massacred more than two hundred victims. It is the birth place of the poet Giuseppe Giusti (1809-1850).

Places to visit:
Santuario di Fontenuova, erected in 1605 in the main square. It is surrounded on three sides by a large frescoed portico. The interior holds many works of art.

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


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