Terricciola

The coat of arms of Terricciola tells its whole history in one figure: half the cross of Pisa and half the lily of Florence, cut vertically and joined to one another. The village stands where the valleys of the Era, the Cascina and the Sterza meet, that is on a line the two republics disputed for centuries: in 1284 the people swore loyalty to Florence, in 1496 Pisa took control back. Earlier still it was Etruscan land, and the Hellenistic necropolises say so, with their chamber tombs dug underground in the hamlets of Morrona and Soiana — among them the hypogeum of the Belvedere. The name may come from Tursenum, the Etruscan and Latin form, or from the turres, the defensive towers with which the village was studded, whence Turricula. And at the plebiscite of 1860, the one for the annexation of Tuscany to the kingdom of Sardinia, the yes votes here did not reach the majority of those entitled: four hundred and twenty-five out of one thousand and sixty-three, a sign that annexation did not convince everybody.

Today Terricciola belongs to the Città del Vino, and under the houses are the cellars, dug in the same tufa as the Etruscan hypogea. Outside the village, at Morrona, stands the abbey of Santa Maria, founded in 1089 by count Ugo della Gherardesca and later the residence of the bishops of Volterra. Villa Gherardi Del Testa was built in 1660, as the inscription on its front says, and there in 1818 was born Tommaso Gherardi del Testa, who would become a well-known playwright; in the family chapel a Madonna and Child attributed to Andrea del Sarto is kept. In front of the town hall stands villa Cempini Meazzoli, where Francesco Cempini was born, finance minister of grand duke Leopold II and later president of the senate. The earthquake of 1846 badly damaged the church of Soiana and the sanctuary of Castelvecchio, which were rebuilt in the following decades.