Una linea di frontiera nel Trecento: il fiume Cecina presso la foce

Crossing the river Cecina near its mouth was a milestone along the Aurelia coastal road to reach both the deviation towards the innermost Emilia Scauri in direction of Pisa (northbound) and junction with the road, on the right side of the river, was leading to Volterra (westbound). In addition, the mouth of the river was used, according to the late medieval sources, as a port for local traffic along the coast. As sometimes attested by casual findings, both bridges built in different periods and some fords traversable according to the season put in communications two territories that, over the centuries, came to acquire specific connotations. At the time of count Fazio Donoratico of Gherardesca, upon a resolution of the Elders of the City of Pisa (1338), a bridge over the Cecina was built close to the sea. In the resolution it was also defined the list of municipalities called to contribute, in various way, to the works for building such an important and necessary passage for both men and cattle. Two marble plaque were placed at each head of the bridge, with engravings reporting year of construction and the arms of the City of Pisa (on the right bank) and of the Count of Gherardesca (on the left bank). The bridge was therefore essential to facilitate the passageway between the two territories that, through the centuries, had acquired complex and specific economic-political peculiarities. Then the river Cecina ended up representing a real border, a separation line «where the Maremma of Pisa begins». The purpose of this paper is a re-reading of the precious written records (XIII-XIV centuries) that enables us to understand how the Cecina, analised in the last stretch towards the sea, has represented the first frontier – concrete but also imaginary – of the wider territory of the Pisan Marittima. A reality that did not remain confined to the Middle Ages but was still present in the Nineteenth Century and at the beginning of the Twentieth.