In the church of SS. Pietro and Paolo (XVIII century) of Colognole – whose name indicates the past of a Roman colony – is housed an organ built between the 16th and 17th centuries for the court celebrations of the Grand Ducal Palace of Livorno and only later converted for use liturgical. The exceptional nature of the work is due to the fact that the instrument – substantially intact – is perhaps the oldest surviving positive organ in Tuscany and still has the Baroque decorations added to the severe late Renaissance wooden structure. The antiquity of the instrument is immediately detected by the keyboard which in its last short octave ends at La4 without G # 4. The acute limit of the keyboards on La4 ceases to be practiced at least from the 30s of the seventeenth century and therefore constitutes an ante quem term for the dating of this instrument. [..] (Pier Paolo Donati – Renzo Giorgetti)

In a room of what are now private houses or villas, it is still possible to note the accommodation for the horizontal wheel that was the driving force for the mills: wheat and chestnuts were the main millings until the 1960s.

At this point, in the structure of the Bottin Tondo both the waters of the four Greater Polle (which enter transversely to the path of the water conveyed along the Camorra), and the waters of the two polle that we meet on our walking path: Miller (near the great holm oak), and the Polle del Fico (called della Chiesina, on our right)

It is the highest point of the Poccianti historic aqueduct complex: these springs are in fact located at the source of the Camorra torrent (Caput Morra)

On this side, beyond the SR5, the ophiolifer complex begins which emerges from Monte Maggiore up to Rosignano Marittimo: these are green rocks, where serpetinites prevail and, to a lesser extent, gabbro and gabbric breccias of the Jurassic age.

In the seventeenth century the Colombian vallombrosano Colombino Bassi, from Livorno, wanted to found in this place (until then “completely wild and inhospitable inhabited by wolves and brigands”) a church dedicated to San Giovanni Gualberto with the annexed monastery. With the authorization of the Grand Duke Cosimo III he purchased the land from the knight Francesco Lante of Pisa. Deforested and leveled the ground on 20 May 1692 the first stone was laid in the presence of the archbishop of Pisa. During the excavations for the foundations valuable archaeological finds were found (weapons, vases, coins and urns) which were donated to the great crown prince Ferdinando de ‘Medici. The complex, designed by Lorenzi from Livorno was completed in 1697 and was entrusted to the monks of the Benedictine order, from which the whole valley took its name. With the financial help of the wealthy merchant Huygens from Hamburg, the road was opened up to Livorno (1694). Became bishop of Pistoia and Prato (1715), Bassi came to consecrate the new church on June 5, 1717.

In 1742 Mr. Filippo Tidi (family who owned water mills on the Rio Ardenza) began building six windmills and ten years later one was finished and another is “more than mezzanine”. In reality, at the end only four structures will actually be built as identified in some maps of the Livorno coast, for use by sailors, relating to portolans (manuals for navigation), in which the mills of the Benedetta Valley, for their eminent position, they are taken as a reference and “target” for crossing the Secche della Meloria and entering the port.

In the first map dated 1769 the mills were still three, while in the subsequent one of 1795, the mills became four. They were used to grind the wheat produced in the not too flat lands.

“… We saw a windmill already finished, and another more than mezzanine, of six that Signor Filippo [Tidi] had built along the top of one of these mountains. They are all of a very judicious, comfortable, and safe design, made by the already Vairynge machinist of S.M.C. and professor of mechanics and experimental philosophy in the Academy of Nancy, then in Florence. This latest invention of windmills would be of great relief to some provinces of Tuscany … “. [Quote Minutelli Collection, year 1752: Targioni Tozzetti “Observations made to the Benedetta Valley” (refers to a trip from 1742)]

The transition was made much more difficult after the flood of September 1, 2017; on this occasion you will find it equipped