Mommialla

The origins of the locality date back to the Early Middle Ages. The first written attestation of a place called Mommialla dates from the year 976. From the document, we learn that the villa of Mommialla, together with others of the territory, including the nearby villa of Camporbiano, belonged to the bishop of Volterra. Mommialla was near a major road junction in ancient times: a little to the north, roughly where the current Via di Camporbiano runs, passed the road that connected San Gimignano to the Valdarno, which was cut, among other things, from Via Volterrana in the direction of the passage on the Elsa near Certaldo. The ancient village must have occupied the space where the small hamlet of Bagni di Mommialla stands today, in the municipality of Gambassi Terme. The only consistent trace of the medieval period is constituted by the remains of the small church of San Frediano, today merged with a local spa resort.

The church of San Frediano di Mommialla is documented beginning from the late 13th-early 14th centuries as Ecclesia de Mamaglia. Two centuries later the ecclesiastical building would appear to have lost its function: in 1576 the church was used as a warehouse, a sign that the population, perhaps reduced, traveled for the functions. However, at the end of the 16th century it seems still to have been well preserved in its main structures, as can be seen from the drawing of San Friano A momialla on one of the maps by the Capitani di Parte Guelfa. During the 17th century, the house annexed to the church collapsed, to be rebuilt only in the 19th century. The church therefore must have followed the same destiny, that is, a slow decline and deconstruction of the building, beginning at least in the 17th century. Archival photos from the last century document the church as a ruin. The few images in which we can still see intact the portal, one of the single-lancet windows, and the stone altar, however, allow us to imagine its original appearance. The church consisted of a simple rectangular hall with masonry in squared rough-hewn limestone blocks, set in horizontal, parallel lines. The masonry was produced with a certain regularity, and to this were connected the openings that used well-squared ashlars for the archivolts, a monobloc for the single-lancet window, and blocks in rounded arches for the façade portal. The upper part of the façade was decorated with a cruciform opening, whereas inside, the flat wall at the back was adorned by only the central lancet window and the altar, a stone table supported by two-tone bands (gabbro and travertine), today lost. The renovated church is now recognizable in the building of a lodging facility ("Alessandra Apartment"). We can see a drawing in a late 16th-century map in which it still seems well preserved in its main structures..

The village of Mommialla, despite the slow decline of its parish church, was completely abandoned only after World War II. Today, after the recovery of the abandoned buildings, what was once the medieval village is now home to accommodation facilities linked to the reactivation of the ancient thermal springs. The baths of Mommialla were already known in the Middle Ages, and Targioni Tozzetti spoke of them in his Relazioni, telling of having seen in Mommialla, “near Borgo il Castagno, a small lake of hot water that flows with impetus, almost boiling”. In the beautiful village of Mommialla where the mighty stone buildings must have functioned, in the late Middle Ages, as refuges for the population, we must recognize the small fortified village that Leonardo drew on one of his most famous maps. In the map RL 12278 from the Windsor collection, we can see Momialla in a central position, between the Elsa and the Era, represented as a group of buildings with outstanding defensive features, a quadrangular fortified house, and a series of turriform buildings nearby. In the vicinity we can see other fortified points on the right of the Elsa: the castles of Gambassi, Catignano, Pietra and Camporbiano.