Camporbiano

The earliest records referring to Camporbiano are very old and date back to the 10th century. Around this date, there was already a villa with the name of Camporbiano dependent upon the bishop of Volterra, as was also the nearby Mummialla. Later the small village was fortified with defensive structures, to the extent that at the beginning of the 11th century, Camporbiano was referred to as castrum and belonged to one of the branches of the family of the Cadolingi. In the same period, the Cadolingi, or their consortium group, exercised jurisdictional rights, not only on Camporbiano, but also on the castles of Catignano, Germagnana, Riparotta, Arsiccioli and Luiano / Macie, and on the old castle of Gambassi. Camporbiano was situated on a road that transited over the ridges of the hills on the left of the Elsa ever since the early Middle Ages. There is also written record of a route near Camporbiano, where the toponym Canonica is still preserved, the ancient church of the place dedicated to San Martino, of which traces remain in a building along the current provincial road.

As happened for many of the possessions of the counts of Fucecchio in Valdelsa, after the death of the last exponent of the noble family house, Camporbiano was also included among the castles of the Cadolingian inheritance that passed to the bishop of Volterra. At the end of the 12th century, and especially at the beginning of the 13th century, this sector of the Valdelsa was the object of the expansionist ambitions of the young municipality of San Gimignano. The lively community was in fact proceeding, in those years, toward the formation of its own territorial area, at the expense of the villages controlled by the bishop of Volterra. Meanwhile, even the city of Volterra had entered the framework of competing powers. During the first decades of the 13th century, the various forces on the field—ultimately the municipalities of San Gimignano and Volterra—were the origin of the warring episodes that played out in the territory of those castles, like Camporbiano, Montignoso and Pietra, situated in strategic positions along the road leading from San Gimignano to Pisa. Within this context, the episode of the destruction of "campo Rempliano", or Camporbiano, occurred in 1230, carried out by the men of San Gimignano. But beginning from the end of the century, San Gimignano entered definitively to become part of the Florentine contado, and consequently Camporbiano also submitted to the City of the Lily.

Similar episodes marked the fate of this small castle "along the road" also in the period following its submission to Florence. According to the chronicles of Villani during the course of the 14th century, Camporbiano, located on the border historically disputed between San Gimignano and Volterra, was subject to retaliation, looting, and destruction, for which Florence had to provide several times. A note from Repetti records the report taken from the Istorie Fiorentine, in which Camporbiano was also involved in the war between the Republic of Florence and the Duchy of Milan—led, respectively, by leaders Niccolò Piccinino and Michele Attendolo—which culminated in the famous battle of Anghiari. In any case, it is certain that at the time of Leonardo, the small castle still must have been a point of reference in the framework of the villages of the Valdelsa equipped with functioning defenses. In Leonardo’s renowned map RL 12278, Camporbiano is, in fact, represented as a walled castle with towers. Today along the road to Camporbiano, buildings and elements of partially reconstructed masonry are preserved, such as the rectory of the "Villa Camporbiano 1 La Canonica" the hospitality structure within which one can perhaps recognize what remains of the late medieval fortress depicted by Leonardo. As reported by Repetti, the community of Camporbiano, which continued to form a stable core of the Valdelsa population, still counted almost 250 inhabitants in the mid-19th century.