Historical shops in Carmignano

• … and they used to rinse clothes in the Ombrone
• After September 8th 1943
• Between the twenties and thirties
• Corrado Capecchi, military internee
  • A medal (at last) for Corrado
  • The joke of the military internees
• Five places of Romanesque Carmignano
• Friar Bocci, at the beginning of the twentieth century
• From archaeologists to farmers
• Gino Balena
• Gino di Fico
• Historical shops in Carmignano
• In the name of Jesus and Saint Peter, may the sty go away
• Liberation day
• Matteucci, the ‘forgotten’ bishop
• Soldier in Greece
• Stories from a school notebook
• Stories of donkeys and jockeys
• Stories of mayors and town councils in Carmignano
• Stories of our home
• Stories of war and displaced persons
• The Battistina and other scary stories
• The colours of the rioni
• The Golden Roster
• The last sharecropper in Carmignano
• The siege in memory of the Princess
• The tree of liberty in Carmignano
• Ugo Contini Bonacossi
• Vittorio’s bicycles
• When the river Arno was fordable ..
• When they were digging pietra serena between Arno and Ombrone
• The colours of Carmignano, a small guide for tourists
  • Ancient churches and abbeys. Montalbano, a crossroads for pilgrims.
    • San Giusto al Pinone
    • San Jacopo in Capezzana
    • San Leonardo in Artimino
    • San Lorenzo in Montalbiolo
    • San Martino in Campo
    • San Michele amarcord
      • San Michele, the theater takes to the streets
• Itineraries for just a few days or more
  • Walking through history and nature
  • A Sunday devoted to the discovery of Artimino
  • A few words about the hamlets of Carmignano
  • The Fontina and Castagnati Lake
• Guides to download

Records are lined up one after another, page after page. As you try to note a date or an anecdote on your notebook, you immediately find a third and a fourth one, a few lines below, just as interesting. There is the sign of the food shop Costantini di Carmignano that hides the story of a Siena man from Chiusdino who arrived in the village to work for Counts Niccolini, then emigrated to New York and returned after ten years to open a food shop now run by his nephew.A few metres (and a few pages) away there is the Biscottificio (biscuit factory) Bellini, better known as “I Fochi” that since 1897 produces delicacies at the same premises at the beginning of Via Roma. This is where Giovanni’s grandfather, who bore the same name, started his workshop of fresh pasta and a press driven by the force of a donkey. Then the first pharmacy in all the municipality, that of Gaetano Cecchi, the record holder macelleria (butcher shop) Ciardi of Comeana that for 105 years, since 1904, has been run by the same family, the old hardware store Venturini (Luzzi in 2009 and now passed in the hands of others but again still there), where at the beginning of the last century, in Largo della Repubblica in Carmignano, they sold coal and like products or the Machiavelli shop in La Serra selling leather goods and equipment for horses and horse riding even to the British Royal Family.
The first notebook of the work that the council wanted to dedicate to the village shops is a goldmine of short stories that you do not expect, is for sale and available to all citizens. “Two young people from the village, Valentina Baldi and Marco Pallecchi have looked after it ” the Youth Policy assessor, Sofia Toninelli explained in January 2009. “In the next volume” – she adds – “we’ll tell of the estates and the farms, the agritourism, the restaurants, crafts and industry.”
You can imagine a simple guide to the businesses of the area, but then you discover that there’s more: it is also a little of the history of Carmignano as it was, of what has survived and as it is today. There are others largely predictable, such as the only store of Poggio alla Malva, the two of Artimino and the three of Bacchereto, where the Lenzi family sells wine and food since the nineteenth century. The stories, are in fact, the real treasure. You can find out about a former hosier and a former weaver who have transformed into pizza makers and sell take away pizza: a sign of the times. You can find, next to the old haberdasheries, bakeries and hairdressers, brand new video rentals, beauty centres, optical stores and travel agencies as a result of the evolving times. You can come across the hairdressing shop Hermada in Comeana, which has been in Salsomaggiore for a few years also doing the hair of the girls aspiring to the title of Miss Italy, or the eight-year old boy who, as a grownup, took over the barbershop where he had always been working.
A village lives off of its shops. There are no shops in the suburbs that become dormitories or on the hills which are perhaps dotted with villas and cottages and where you go back only to sleep. And so the book could not be but dedicated to those who live in Carmignano and keep it alive. (wf)