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The squares of the ancient centre of Campiglia:
Birth and development of two urban spaces
The two main squares within the historic centre of Campiglia - Republic Square and Market Square - are squares designed and desired by the citizens and the municipal administration in the past centuries.
The need for open spaces within the urban fabric arose around the mid-sixteenth century and continued to reappear until the early twentieth century when the two squares acquired their current appearance.
These squares have an interesting history different from that which characterises many squares in other places, that like Campiglia, have a medieval layout. They are not medieval squares, nor do they represent the urban expression of political or religious power; the Pretorio Palace and the parish church of San Lorenzo are located respectively upstream and downstream, along the road axis from Porta a Rivellino to Porta S. Antonio.
Isidoro Falchi already refers to the sixteenth-century origin of the square and its nineteenth-century expansion in his "Trattenimenti," without dwelling on the details and mentioning only the date of 1560. However, it was a good clue, as it was relatively easy to find the necessary documentation in the municipal historical archive for the study of the square now called Republic Square.
Republic Square
The date 1560 indicated by Falchi constituted the first indication from which the archive research started, and it was possible to verify the accuracy of the information by consulting the community's deliberation register from around 1550 to 1630, where on page 116v (Photos 1 and 2), there is a note next to the square "SQUARE TO BE MADE." There are no specific topographic indications, but this square can be well identified with the one called "Main" in the first half of the last century, being the only one in the town. The demolished houses were likely to be Pisan, like most buildings in that area, characterised by a structure in beautiful cut limestone.
For three centuries, the people of Campiglia seemed satisfied with the sixteenth-century square until, in the session of 24 March, 1836, the community commissioned District Engineer Bordoni to design the enlargement of the Main Square, following the request of a group of citizens of Campiglia. (Photo 3 - Campiglia in a cadastral map of 1821).
Bordoni's project is the most essential among those that were presented later and was set aside when the position of District Engineer passed to Engineer Rinaldo Fossi. In Bordoni's report, the use of the "stone of the sandstone from the Cava delle Conce" was recommended.
From the community's deliberations, it seems that Bordoni's project was approved on 28 January, 1837, by the Gonfaloniere and Priors, to be then submitted to the grand-ducal authority.
The square's expansion obviously involved some demolitions. On 13 September,1837, the owners of the houses to be demolished were summoned: Luigi Mari and Carlo Boldrini. The works walrere eady behind schedule, and an agreement was urgently needed. On 29 December, the expert for the estimation of the buildings to be demolished was appointed. On 24 July, 1838, Engineer Rinaldo Fossi, who had meanwhile replaced Bordoni as District Engineer, signed a second project for the enlargement of the square. Fossi's project comprised three sheets.
Fossi documented the demolition of the Boldrini house and the integration of the facade of the Mari house, joined in a stretch to that of Boldrini; he proposed the restoration of the Poli arch "currently dirty and indecent, will be arranged without the servitude of the owner," sets the conditions for the stones and their implementation. It may seem curious that Fossi advised the extraction of marbles in the possession of Mr. Givan Battista Orzalesi without specifying whether the material was of higher quality at that precise point.
However, Fossi's project also remained on paper because in 1839 Engineer Fossi was replaced by Engineer Sanminiatelli, to whom the council of the community representatives submitted the previous project, which underwent a modification for the part concerning the wall on the road to the church, which Fossi had designed with a central staircase. On 28 December, 1839, Engineer Sanminiatelli "submits to the consideration of the Illustrious Lordships the report accompanied by drawings for which he plans a modification to the project of his predecessor in employment."
This time the project succeeded in becoming a reality, and to this day, the square is the one conceived by Sanminiatelli, excluding the raised part of the cistern that remained on paper.
Probably the idea was discarded due to excessive monumentality. The design was certainly interesting, but a fountain in the form of an obelisk in carved marble in the centre of the facades was considered no less rhetorical than the monumental parapet designed by Fossi, which had been the reason for the project revision. Fossi's parapet was discarded precisely because it seemed too grandiose for the context in which it was supposed to fit.
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