Dante names it in the Commedia, and calls it simply Campi: that was its name then, and it came from the many fields into which the territory was divided. The «Bisenzio» arrived in 1862, when newly united Italy sorted out its homonymous comuni and gave this one the name of the river that crosses it from north to south. On the plain between Florence and Prato, Campi grew along that river, around the Rocca Strozzi, the fortress that bears the name of the great Florentine family.
The parish church of Santo Stefano holds works that betray the nearness of great patrons. Today Campi Bisenzio is one of Italy's capitals of shopping and leisure — its retail parks draw the whole metropolitan area — and the teatrodante Carlo Monni keeps the cultural scene alive in the name of the actor born here. The plain, entirely flat and crossed by the Bisenzio, pays the price of water: it is one of the areas of Tuscany at greatest hydrogeological risk, and when the river rises everybody knows it. Florence is twenty minutes away, Prato ten: a working plain, not a suburb.
Teatrodante Carlo Monni · Villa Montalvo
Bistecca alla Fiorentina
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Next up: Blessed Teresa Manetti, the «Bettina» proclaimed patron by popular petition, Friday 23 April
Nearest airport: Firenze Peretola, 6 km away
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📅 Every year, on 23 April
Campi Bisenzio celebrates Blessed Teresa Maria of the Cross, born Teresa Manetti, on 23 April, the day of her death in 1910; born in 1846 in the local hamlet of San Martino, she founded the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Teresa, now present on five continents.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Campi Bisenzio, but an easy day trip away.
