Stories of mayors and town councils 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

It is with the division between Poggio a Caiano and Carmignano, in 1963, that the left begins to govern in the larger of the two Medicean towns of Montalbano. The first season was that of the joined Psi-PCI (TN: Italian Socialist Party – Italian Communist Party) which continued until 1977 with the Socialist mayor Guido Lenzi. Then it was the turn of the Communists, first with the external support of once again the Socialists (1979-1983) and then by themselves. In the mayor’s chair sat Antonio Cirrus (until 1988) and then Alessandro Attucci, who from 1993 to 1997, after having passed in the meantime to the Ds, led a town council also open to other progressive forces of the left. The Popolari appeared instead in 1997 with Vittorio Cintolesi. An independent mayor who was close to the Rifondazione (TN: Refoundation Communist Party).It was then the turn of Doriano Cirri (Ds and then Pd), mayor from 2006 to 2011, leader of a broad centre-left coalition. He was  re-elected in 2011.
A total of nearly five decades that is, in reality, a “longer” period.
Carmignano had in fact always been a conservative town since the unification of Italy. At the referendum of 1946, the Republic won with a margin of just twelve points. Strikingly, in the provincial capital, in Poggio a Caiano and Artimino the monarchy won. The Christian Democrats had an absolute majority until 1963 with the mayors Pietro Bernabei (1946), Giacomo Caiani (1948) and Leonardo Civinini (1954). Few in the party, compared to the period before the war, were the young surviving Popolari who had tried in previous years to reform the liberal system in a more supportive way . Also the civil lists close to the right wing were doing well: 11,9% consensus in the provincial capital in 1956. The MSI (TN: Italian Social Movement) in Carmignano (the rise of left parties begins from the hamlets) was flying with an 8% in 1972.
Since the unification of Italy, the political framework of the Prato Montalbano was after all very very conservative. At the plebiscite of 11 and 12 March 1860, 11.70% of voters (according to the census, only few hundreds) were in favour of a separate Tuscan Kingdom. In other municipalities in the province of Prato the same percentage ranged between 2.17 percent and 5.63 of Vernio of Montemurlo. It is from the first elections of 1865 that a distinct political system characterized by notable and influential families (first noble and Florentine, then from the local area), which for almost a century dominated the Carmegnanese scene and will try, after the war, to keep their presence and try to reassert their legitimacy  and leadership of institutions such as the Pro Loco, the committees of Saint Michael, the Misericordia or the Cassa Rurale. With the end of the war and fascism, the presence of families in the corridors of power ceases to exist. Nonetheless, in Carmignano and Poggio a Caiano (which until 1963 will be a single municipality) the workers were few. On the contrary, many were the small business, operators and farmers. Contacts with the outside were few. It is for this reason that the rise of the left will be limited. At the referendum that decided the fate of the monarchy, the conservative trend remerged. In simultaneous elections for the constituent assembly, the Christian Democrats got the relative majority (which will become absolute 18 April 1948). Together with Firenzuola, Marradi, Montelupo, Palazzuolo sul Senio and San Godendo, Carmignano was among those municipalities of the province of Florence where the Christian Democrats got the best results. (Wf)