The history

The history of La Landuccia is partly mystery and without any kind of documentation. It is tied to the ruins of medieval origin close by, which is the old Landuccia. The style of the building with the tower put it into a period between 1200 and 1400 when the first farmhouses were built in brick. These buildings, partly for reasons of defence in a period of political instability and partly for the double purpose of being not only farmers’ houses but also the landed gentry’s outpost, were built in the well-known tower house style, of which Tuscan cities and villages have magnificent examples, just think of San Gimignano. The existence of the old Landuccia is known by the presence of medieval documents and maps from 1500 and 1600 kept in the archives of Volterra, while of the new Landuccia there is no trace until a map of 1821 of the duchy of Tuscany, of Catasto Leopoldino. The new construction was therefore built around the end of 1600 and the beginning of the 1800’s. From a testimony handed down by word of mouth in through the generations in our family we know that one of our descendants, at that time a dependant of the Libbiano farm, born presumably between 1795 and 1802, moved with the whole family whilst still a baby to the newly built Landuccia so becoming the first child to inaugurate it. During the whole of 1700 the old house must have already been in bad condition and not suitable for the needs dictated by an important research in 1770 Delle case de’ contadini by Ferdinando Morozzi desired by the nobility of Tuscany. Instead of adapting the old house, as was done in other rural habitations, it was preferable to build a new house to a new plan, the so called Tuscan farmhouse with an external stairway.

All the surroundings were constructed to facilitate the farmers and their livestock, to make their work easier and increase their yield. The best masters of the Italian trades worked there, bricklayers, stonemasons and brick makers that set up builder’s yards for the money of the great Tuscan farms. To the verbal testimony we can add an important written document. On the back of a brick, that was part of a collapsed vaulted ceiling discovered during the renovation, is the date July 1794 and the name of the brick maker. The picture has become clearer; one can imagine the great courtyard fitted out as a builder’s yard in which they made the bricks and laid them out to dry in the sun, the ox-drawn carts that brought great quantities of stone, the digging of the foundations. It’s summer 1794, Libbiano is still an independent community, her farm is growing, thanks to the income from farming and the exploitation of the mines, Tuscany is in a happy oasis in a divided Italy, while in the turmoil of Paris, Robespierre fell and Europe still hadn’t known Napoleon. The bricks of history are spread everywhere.

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