|
 Inhabitants in 1991: 27.382
 The
Municipal territory of Bagno a Ripoli has a surface area of 74.09 square
kilometres and extends along the left bank of the Arno as far as the borders
of Firenze. Seat of law from XIII century then capital of Podesta Office
and eventually a large Leopoldina Community. It reached its present day
territorial order in 1968 with the aggregation of a part of the suppressed
municipality of Galluzzo after having, during the 1800s, ceded
to Firenze three districts on the right of the Arno (Settignano, Varlungo
and Rovezzano).
The Municipality is articulated on three major centres: apart
from Bagno a Ripoli, Antella and Grassina. The capital owes part of its
name to the presence, in Roman times, of a thermal establishment,
whose remains were found during the XVII century, while the place name
Ripoli was derived from its position (Ripa [steep bank]), close to
the river, of an alluvial plane brought about by the modification
of the flow of the Arno; in the XIII century it was the Seat of
the League of Ripoli, a federation of rural bodies with administrative
and military functions. The other centre we need to mention is that of
Antella, whose antique parish church represented an aggregation
centre which gave life, in the course of time, to the actual town. Grassina
seems to have had other origins, developing perhaps as a market of the
castle of Montacuto which overlooked it, but growing, mostly between
the XVIII and XIX centuries, because of the development of traffic and
thanks the Firenze laundry industry. Deserving a mention is the
fact that the territory of the Ripoli plain was (and is also shown in
the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci) crossed by a secondary branch of the
Arno (the so called Bisarno), which formed an island between Varlungo
on the right bank and the parish of San Piero in Palco on the left bank.
Places to visit:
Archaeological Area, with remains of Roman buildings. They
can be visited on request to the Council.
S. Maria a Quarto,
a church already in existence in the XIII century, was restored with
neo-gothic integrations in 1930. It holds precious paintings. |
Historical info reproduced upon authorization of Regione Toscana - Dipartimento della Presidenza E Affari Legislativi e Giuridici
Translated by Ann Mountford |
