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Inhabitants in 1991: 7.120
 The
municipal territory extends for 227,54 square kilometres in the Val di
Cecina, on the summit and slopes of a hilly spur, at the centre of a zone
of borax fumarole. A municipality of Leopoldina origin, it suffered
a territorial reduction in 1870, when the districts of Sasso and di Leccio
were detached from it and aggregated to Castelnuovo Val di Cecina.
Pomarance (once called Ripomarance) has origins as a Castle whose
dominion was contested for several centuries by the Bishop and the municipal
of Volterra. Regardless of the privileges agreed on in 1186 by the
future Emperor Enrico VI to the Ecclesiastic authority, it seems the predominance
was held by the municipal as is attested in successive acts of subjugation
on the part of the inhabitants of the castle, even though until the reforms
of the Volterra statutes, the rector, elected among the Volterra citizens
continued to receive the investiture by the Bishop. Occupied in 1431
by Niccolò Piccinino, on the payroll of the Duke of Milano,
and ransacked in 1447 by the army of King Alfonso d’Aragona,
then beaten by the troops sent by Firenze, Pomarance passed under
the direct government of the Fiorentina republic in 1472, when Volterra
left, beaten in the war with Firenze for the possession of the Allume
mines. In 1513 with the return of the Medici in Firenze, it re-acquired
the power to elect its own magistrates and at the fall of the Fiorentina
republic remained in the power of the Duchy and then the Grand Duchy
of Toscana, sharing the fate of the Grand Duchy until the Unity of Italy.
Places to visit:
S. Giovanni Battista, Romanic church. The three nave interior
preserves frescoes by Aldemollo and other precious works of art. |
Historical info reproduced upon authorization of Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e Giuridici
Translated by Ann Mountford |
