Resistance, Deportation, and Massacres in Sambuca Pistoiese

Sambuca Pistoiese is a large municipality located in the Pistoia Apennines in the Limentra valley. Its main hamlets include Taviano, Pavana, and Treppio. Throughout this extensive territory, there are memorial stones and plaques commemorating partisan victims, deportations, and massacres that occurred in the area. 

In this region, the partisan Magnino Magni, a 30 year-old member of the Brigata Bozzi, was fatally wounded during the ‘Treppio clash’ on 18 April 1944. On that day, his unit was surrounded by a substantial Nazi-fascist force, and Magni sacrificed himself to cover the retreat of his team. A memorial stone in his honour was placed in the woods above Treppio on 8 July 1945. On the same day, another stone was installed in memory of Gianni Cesare, a partisan fighter of the Treppio unit who fell on 27 September 1944. It is located at the intersection of Provincial Road 24 and Provincial Road 42, which leads up to Treppio. 

Treppio is also home to a monument dedicated to Luigi Piergallini and all those who died in Nazi concentration camps. Piergallini was a tax officer, born in Ripatransone, and married for a second time to Lina Bartoletti, a native of the hamlet. For some time, he collaborated with the Bologna National Liberation Committee; with the support of anti-fascists, he was appointed secretary of the Republican Fascist Party of Taviano, beginning intense espionage activities. He was discovered after the Treppio clash and arrested by the Carabinieri (Italy’s national gendarmerie). He was deported to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he died on 13 February 1945. A plaque commemorating the victims from Sambuca Pistoiese in Nazi camps was also placed on the Taviano Town Hall. 

The territory was also affected by civilian massacres. On 27 September 1944, during the German retreat toward the Gothic Line, Vincenzo Erroi was machine-gunned and killed in Pavana. Accompanying him was his relative Chiara Lacometti, who was injured and died on 6 October at the Pistoia hospital. Erroi’s name is included on the two plaques installed beside the First World War memorial in Pavana. Today, the hamlet is also known as the birthplace and current residence of the singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini.