Talla

The name Talla carries two layers of history one on top of the other: some trace it to the Etruscan family name Tallulah, perhaps that of a deity to whom the place was dedicated, others to the Germanic Tal, valley, brought by the Lombards who in the sixth century had fortified themselves at Pontenano. Etruscans really were here, as the votive altar found behind the apse of the Pieve a Socana and the burial ground of the Bucacce both show. In the Middle Ages Talla was no more than a small Ubertini castle, hemmed in by stronger neighbours, and in 1384 it followed its territory into submission to Florence.

It became a comune in its own right only late, under the French occupation of the Napoleonic period, and the restored grand duchy did not take the title away. Enthusiasm for changes of regime was never much felt here: at the plebiscite of 1860 on the annexation of Tuscany to the Kingdom of Sardinia the yes votes were 113 out of 672 entitled to vote, which is to say that almost nobody stirred. The coat of arms, drawn in those very years, sets the whole story out in order: the red Ubertini lion clasping between its paws a small shield with the lily of Florence, the three peaks of Talla, the Penna and the Alpe di Santa Trinita, and above them the cross of Savoy.