The Pieve of Rivalto is a hamlet of about 15 houses located on the slopes of the hill of Rivalto on Provincial Road 48 of Montevaso in the stretch that connects Casciana Terme to Chianni at crossroad with Terroti road for Terricciola. La Pieve is the first hamlet you come across before climbing up the slope de La Lama to Rivalto and represents the historic place of the village where the first inhabitants settled, later migrated further up at the Rivalto's Castle.
Archaeological findings discovered that an ancient church with adjoining land was present here since the beginning of the first millennium. This church was dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption that, pursuant to the measure which sanctioned the weakening of small parishes and brotherhoods in favor the parish offices, was gradually abandoned until it was desecrated and demolished in 1787. Today the area where was the ancient church is used as a parking area and a wrought iron cross testifies to the presence of the place of worship of the past.
Surrounded by rolling hills, La Pieve is developed mainly on Montevaso street that design an oval course. Every house is surrounded by green, manicured gardens and cultivated fields mostly with olive trees, fruits, vegetables and herbs. It is not uncommon to find evidence of the agricultural society of the past, vases made from ancient stone stacks (troughs once used in chicken coops) or terracotta jars for olive oil, held up by old wooden vats or by the stone bases of barrels, wooden carts and drays, plows and ox yokes.
Surrounded by rolling hills, La Pieve is developed mainly on Montevaso street that design an oval course. Every house is surrounded by green, manicured gardens and cultivated fields mostly with olive trees, fruits, vegetables and herbs. It is not uncommon to find evidence of the agricultural society of the past, vases made from ancient stone stacks (troughs once used in chicken coops) or terracotta jars for olive oil, held up by old wooden vats or by the stone bases of barrels, wooden carts and drays, plows and ox yokes.
In recent years, in countertendency to Rivalto, the village of La Pieve has recorded a demographic increase, especially of young people and, consequently, a vast action of renovation of the old houses that are large, due to rural style, with high ceilings and have large rooms where they gathered more beds to accommodate the big families than once. Some homes were brought back to the original stone and have been made rural style apartment. This structures in the past were old manor house, old oil mill, the barn of pigs and the housing of horses, with careful renovation action to recover large brick arches, wooden beams, old tools adapted to home furnishings: spinning wheels, bed warmers, irons donkey, cupboards, cabinets, lamps, oil, coal stoves, even the old millstone of mill today stand a circular fireplace.
The rhythms of the town are still those of the past: because of the small size, everyone knows everyone; several children, especially in the last years, frolic in the neighboring fields; women still face sitting on chairs in front of the gates of the straw house to talk about going on time and everyday life, as it was in the past when, instead of ironing the clothes of the laundry, they wrap them and sat on it to iron with human warmth.
Being right on the street of Chianni, the inhabited center is a transit point, and, for this reason, the inhabitants of La Pieve have always been a virtue of hospitality.
The rhythms of the town are still those of the past: because of the small size, everyone knows everyone; several children, especially in the last years, frolic in the neighboring fields; women still face sitting on chairs in front of the gates of the straw house to talk about going on time and everyday life, as it was in the past when, instead of ironing the clothes of the laundry, they wrap them and sat on it to iron with human warmth.
Being right on the street of Chianni, the inhabited center is a transit point, and, for this reason, the inhabitants of La Pieve have always been a virtue of hospitality.
On the ground floor of the first house that you meet on the left coming from Chianni, at street number 41, there was long time ago, a little food shop founded by Alamiro Costagli (1876-1937) who, in addition to selling groceries, had internal source of fresh water that gushed from an underground spring (called "the cave"). The tradition of the shop was later continued by his son Rino Costagli (1914-1993) and by Rino's daughters, Rosanna and Grazia. Rino added a wood stove and wooden tables to trasforming the shop into a pizzeria, very well frequented at that time by young people from Chianni and Rivalto for its thin tasty and crispy pizza. The shop was a meeting point for all the peasants and laborers of neighboring farms to refuel and stock up on water and, in the 50's, at the end of the work in the fields, they rushed here to see the first television programs, dressed in elegant dresses with suit and tie. In front of the house, after few years, it was set up a mechanical and manual petrol pump. Closed in 1973, still it maintains visible on the façade wall the traces of the word "Wine and Spirits", the iron supports of the sign "Salt and Tobacco" and the support of an old oil lamp that lit burning night and day, every time, indicating to travelers a place of rest -a signal imposed by the laws of the time and due to this if found turned off, they could fined-. Inside the old rooms, the wooden furniture and the old stone oven restored for private use.
Despite the low number of inhabitants, La Pieve has been characterized over the years by some enterprising and entrepreneurial attitude. In addition to work in the fields, wine and oil, in fact, an organic pasta factory was found here in 1985 and closed in 1991 and today is still operating the oven homemade "La Casaccia" where Lucia Costagli, from Friday to Sunday, churns bread (Tuscan unsalted, with sweet anise and raisins, with percorino and nuts), flatbread (salt, with rosemary, crackling, sweet with anise) and traditional desserts (tarts with ricotta cheese, pine nuts, apples, Tuscan chocolate salami), making use of the old family recipes.
La Pieve has always been linked to Rivalto and, even when streets and roads between the two places were not as easy as today (the roads were very bumby and rugged and the post-bus still did not reach Rivalto), they used gimmicks and tricks to communicate: the white sheets spread on the house windows in La Pieve signaled to Rivalto's people that they were ready to go to Rivalto, the echo of laughter and jokes or heated discussions that reached La Pieve coming from Rivalto, notified real-time updates on the mood of the country.
Many stories tell about events occurred in La Pieve, including, in 1944 the terrible tragedy of three children died while playing in a field due to the outbreak of an unexploded bomb of Second World War and the transit of the procession of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in 1980.
La Pieve has always been linked to Rivalto and, even when streets and roads between the two places were not as easy as today (the roads were very bumby and rugged and the post-bus still did not reach Rivalto), they used gimmicks and tricks to communicate: the white sheets spread on the house windows in La Pieve signaled to Rivalto's people that they were ready to go to Rivalto, the echo of laughter and jokes or heated discussions that reached La Pieve coming from Rivalto, notified real-time updates on the mood of the country.
Many stories tell about events occurred in La Pieve, including, in 1944 the terrible tragedy of three children died while playing in a field due to the outbreak of an unexploded bomb of Second World War and the transit of the procession of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in 1980.