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Inhabitants in 1991: 1.633
 The
municipal territory of Radda in Chianti extends for 80,56 square kilometres
on the hills of the high valley of the rivers Pesa and Arbia. Feudal
centre, then Medieval Podesta office from the XIII century, it reached
its present day aspect with the Leopoldina reforms of 1774.
Radda was recorded for the first time with certainty in a diploma of
Ottone III from 1003 when its Court and castle were possessed by the
Fiorentina Abbey to whom they had been donated by the Marquis di Toscana,
and to whom it was confirmed by the Imperial authority, and thus it happened
also several times in the following decade either with an act of succession
by Ottone or with a series of Pontiff Stamps. It became feudal of the
Guidi Counts in 1220 ordered by Federico II, towards the middle of
the XIII century (even if the precise date is not known), for its fundamental
strategic importance Firenze affirmed its dominion there, who from
1176 had jurisdiction over the greater part of Southern Chianti previously
belonging to Siena.
 Firenze
put Radda at the head of one of the three Thirds in which the Chianti
League was administratively divided and at least starting from 1384 it
became capital of the same League, as is shown by the oldest conservative
statutes. In the middle of the 1300s on the orders of the Fiorentino government
the wall of the castle were re-enforced and new fortifications were needed
after the Aragonese invasion in 1478, during which the Radda castle
was conquered and devastated. Other periods of mobilisation had to be
lived through in the first half of the 1500s, until the fall of the Siena
republic; from then on their fate was one of an active agricultural
centre.
Places to visit:
S. Maria al Prato, Francescano Convent of XI century, which
was restructured in 1600. Hosts precious works of art. |
Historical info reproduced upon authorization of
Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e
Giuridici
Picture by Sandro Santioli
Translated by Ann Mountford
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