Buriano (Montecatini Val di Cecina)

Buriano is a frazione of the Italian comune of Montecatini Val di Cecina, in the province of Pisa, Tuscany.

The village of Buriano was founded in the early Middle Ages and was ruled by the noble Saracini family of Pisa. It is documented in a transfer to the bishop of Volterra in 1108 and later in the imperial privileges of Frederick I, Henry VI (1186), Otto IV and Charles IV (1353 and 1369). From 1273 the castle and village of Buriano became part of the comune of Volterra.

In the 19th century it became the property of the Incontri marquises of Volterra, who created a large estate there. In 1833 Buriano had 129 inhabitants.

In the early 20th century the estate passed to the French Rochefort family. In 1931 there were 457 inhabitants, but after the Second World War the village emptied quickly, down to just 43 inhabitants in 1961 and 12 in 1981. In the 1990s there was an attempt to relaunch it as an "albergo diffuso" (village hotel), but it failed, and since 1998 Buriano has been completely uninhabited.

The church of San Niccolò, the hamlet's place of worship, is documented since the early Middle Ages, but its present eclectic look comes from 19th-century rebuilding. It is still abandoned.

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