Inhabitants in 1991: 52.523
The
municipal territory of Scandicci extends for 59,59 square kilometres in
the hilly area of Valdarno Fiorentino It received its present
day denomination in 1929 and with this it absorbed the territory which
had previously belonged to the suppressed municipalities of Casellina
and Torri; in 1939 the district of Signano from the municipality of Firenze
was added to it.
The oldest mention of the capital goes back to 978 when the Countess
Willa mother of the Marquis Ugo di Toscano, donated to the Fiorentina
Abbey certain assets in the Val di Greve among which was the Scandicci
Castle with the annexed church and thirty manses belonging to the
same court. It is said that the castle (then called Scandicci Alto) was
probably, since the Dark Ages, one of the many fortresses that
belong to the feudal lineage of Cadolingi. In the two centuries
after the year 1000 more than once Emperors and Popes confirmed the
donation of the castle to the Monks of the Abbey, but the town did
not appear to have developed greatly, as in the 1300 it was nothing more
than a small village dependent on the parish of Santa Maria a Greve and
still was, until in the 1800s, when the Seat of the huge municipalities
of Casellina and Torri were transferred to it. From the second half
of the last century the town began rapidly to grow, but did not abandon
its essentially agricultural connections. By now a well populated agricultural
and working class centre, Scandicci lived dramatic times during Fascism
with the incursions of the "squads" who tried to impose with violence
that which was contrary to the democratic tradition of the town. If the
clandestine opposition to the regime did not die down for the whole of
the twenty years, it reached its rightful conclusion in the resistance
when the Scandicci partisan formation contributed highly in the struggle
against the nazifascism, participating among other things to the liberation
of Firenze. Starting from the 70s the municipality has seen a very
accentuated popular urbanistic growth being a satellite city of Firenze.
Places to visit: S. Giusto, church with antique
origins remade in the 1600s. S. Maria, parochial already
mentioned in 1070, suffered various changes over the years, the most
important in 1926. The interior preserves and Glass and Terracotta
from the studio of Della Robbia. S. Martino alla Palma,
outside the town, a very ancient church recorded from the X century
and restructured in the 1700s. |
Historical info reproduced upon authorization of Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e Giuridici
Translated by Ann Mountford |