Poggio Santa Cecilia

Poggio Santa Cecilia is a frazione of the Italian comune of Rapolano Terme, in the province of Siena, Tuscany.

The origin of the fortified settlement is uncertain, as there are no documents before the 12th century, but according to some sources the site was first inhabited in Etruscan times.

Until 1260 Poggio Santa Cecilia was one of the castles of the Counts of the Berardenga, and in 1271 it was the seat of a civil magistrate under the podestà of Siena. In the 12th century its parish church of Santa Maria in Ferrata was under the patronage of the Camaldolese abbey of Agnano in Val d'Ambra. The other parish church was dedicated to Santa Cecilia, but in 1484, because of disputes between their rectors, the bishop of Arezzo merged the two parishes into one. Finally, by another episcopal decree of June 1798, the parish of Santa Maria in Ferrata was moved to the oratory of San Pietro.

In 1833 the hamlet had 315 inhabitants, and the estate of the Poggio had 31 farms, all but 9 owned by the old noble Sienese Buracchi family, later the Marquises Buracchi von Mansfeld.

A plaque gives the date of Garibaldi's stay one month too early. In fact Garibaldi arrived at Poggio Santa Cecilia on 14 August 1867, by train from Siena, and stayed until the 24th, as a similar plaque at the Terme Querciolaie also confirms. Every day he went by carriage to the thermal baths and came back in the evening, with his sons and his entourage.

Today Poggio Santa Cecilia is a ghost village, completely uninhabited.

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