Brento Sanico

Brento Sanico is an uninhabited village in the comune of Firenzuola (province of Florence), in the heart of the Tuscan-Romagnol Apennines. The name is of Germanic origin and refers to the village being "well sheltered from the wind".

According to documents in the Firenzuola municipal archives, about eighty people lived in Brento Sanico in 1843.

It was an important place, because it stood on the only road linking Romagna with Tuscany: the tolls charged to travellers were quite high, as they paid for the upkeep of roads battered by mud, steep slopes, snow and rain. Despite its strategic importance, it remained a typical rural village living on sheep farming, livestock, chestnut gathering and growing wheat, maize and vegetables.

In the 1930s Brento was known for its festivals and good times. In the 1940s there was even a school: the comune of Firenzuola had a technician certify a room in a private house, so that the few inhabitants of Brento and the nearby farms could attend without going down to the valley.

The village has been abandoned since 1951, when the last registered family moved down to the Firenzuola hamlet of San Pellegrino. It was abandoned because the new motorways and main roads built after the war took away Brento's strategic importance.

Recently the houses were bought at auction by a priest from Romagna, who is restoring the village with a group of volunteers.

Text: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · translated from Italian