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Towns of the area

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Pelago

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Inhabitants in 1991: 7.218

The municipal territory of Pelago extends for 54,78 square kilometres between the slopes of the Apennines and those of Pratomagno and the Val di Sieve, in an area of hills and mountains. Originally a feudal castle, the municipality of Pelago reached its present day aspect in 1915 when the districts of Rufina and Contea were detached from it and constituted as autonomous municipality with the name of Rufina.

The oldest documented mention of Pelago goes back to 1089. Its territory was for a long time possessed by the Counts Guidi di Poppi, from whom, so it is said, there had been many bequeaths donated to the advantage of the Vallombrosa monks; on the contrary the castle, at least from the XIII century was under the authority of the Cattani da Diacceto, a family of minor nobility probably Guidi vassals, and until the XV century on several occasions there arose disputes of ownership between the Cattani, the Camaldoli monks, the Bishop of Fiesole and the Fiorentina republic to whom the supremacy had been recognised since the middle of the 1200s. To remedy the diatribe definitively Papa Eugenio IV in 1445 laid out a "brief" which confirmed the Cattani da Diacceto as proprietors of the castle. Coming to the Fiorentino State at the beginning of the modern era, Pelago was made capital of the community in 1808 by the Napoleonic administration.

Places to visit:
S. Clemente, church positioned in the centre of the town, has internally an important triptych of the 1400s.

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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