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History of Fiesole near Florence

In the 8th century Empoli was mentioned in documents found in a castle at Empoli Vecchio (Santa Maria a Ripa), but the city developed after 1119 around the parish country church of S. Andrea.

Empoli was a feud owned by the earls of the Guidi family in 1182 and later it took its oath of allegiance to the republic of Florence. In 1260, after the battle that marked the defeat of the florentine Guelphs, it was in the building of the earls Guidi that the Ghibelline parliament gathered and Florence was saved by the generous speech of Farinata Degli Uberti, who was mentioned by Dante in his masterpiece (Inferno, Canto X). In memory of this event the Guidi building was renamed Ghibelline building (Palazzo Ghibellino), as it's known today.

The walls of the city, damaged by the famous flooding of 1333, were rebuilt and restored a few years later, while in the second half of 1400 a third quadrangular circle of walls was built, of which many parts are on view today. The city suffered from the attacks of the troops of Castruccio Castracani (1315)from the Pisani and from the Visconti. In 1501 the city was plundered by duke Valentino and in 1350 by the spanish imperial troops, after the desperate defence organized by Francesco Ferrucci.

From the sack of 1530 to the second half of the 18th century, Empoli went through a dark period in which it partly lost those features that in the past few centuries had made it a very active centre. The first signs of awakening occurred with the reforms for the raising of enterprises and economy by duke Leopoldo I of Lorraine.

From the second half of the 19th century, together with a development in manufacturing, particularly in the field of glass, the city had a raising both on urbanistic and demographic level, that led to the creation of a train line named "Leopolda" between Florence and Pisa and to the building of a new bridge on river Arno.

The circle of walls and the city doors were pulled down in order to give space to new houses. The old town centre was further on seriously damaged by the last world war. In the post war period the city had a slow but steady recovery as for the old building structures, both urban and architectural.

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