San Giuliano Terme

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Inhabitants in 1991: 28.188

Situated between the Arno and the Serchio, the municipal territory extends for 92,22 square kilometres at the feet and on the south western slopes of Monte Pisano reaching to the sea. Bagni di San Giuliano had already become autonomous community in 1776 thanks to the aggregation of 31 small territories from the Podesta office of Ripafratta and it changed its name in 1935.

Probably inhabited from the Roman era for the marble and stone excavations, used later for the construction of the Pisa buildings, and later still for the thermal waters mentioned by Plinio, in the Medieval San Giuliano was a village which had grown around a church in the Lucca Diocese and documented as being from 772. In the XII century it was fortified with walls and keeps and was part of the Pisano county. Of notable importance as obligatory route on the road to Lucca, it was the theatre of repeated armed encounters between the internal republic and Pisa: the two cities contested possession until the peace of Montopoli, which sanctioned the restitution to Pisa, after the razing of the towers in 1397. The importance of the baths, which tradition has as being instigated by Matilde di Canossa, is attested in a document of the Pisa municipal from 1161, regarding the obligation of the Podesta to take care of the Bagni di Monte Pisano, Restored more than once, enlarged and surrounded by walls in the XIV century, the baths were destroyed in 1406 by the Fiorentini; rebuilt in 1597 by Grand Duke Ferdinando I and newly restored in 1684, the baths were sold by Cosimo III to the Pia Casa della Misericordia di Pisa, who constructed a building with lodgings. During the decadence of the Grand Duchy, it was forgotten, but rediscovered in 1742 by Emperor Francesco I who came to the Toscana throne. Stronghold of the republican party, San Giuliano posed a strong resistance to the penetration of Fascism. During the second world war, despite the fact that Monte Pisano offered scarce possibility for guerrilla activity, it was an important centre of partisan activity intensified in 1944 and culminating in a violent armed encounter with the German military command stationed in Agnano, who performed various reprisals in subsequence. It was from its mountains that on 2 September 1944 that partisan formations descended and were the first to enter Pisa evacuated by the Germans.

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