Ivo Fanciullini

The Casanova di Pescille farm was founded by Ivo Fanciullini, my father, Mayor of San Gimignano between 1955 and 1972. He was appointed mayor very young, just 10 years after the war. With Ivo Fanciullini a new period opened in the life of San Gimignano: that of the struggle to uphold democracy and programmes for the city's economic rebirth.

For many years Ivo Fanciullini knew how to undertake the city's new needs, giving voice and energy to the commitment for the development of the two basic sectors of our economy: agriculture, exhausted by the crisis and by the flight of the sharecroppers; tourism, which was still far from having revealed its own potential.

He had been a member of that group of young people who from the hard years of the Resistance and the struggle against fascism had drawn the stimulus to devote his life to political and labour union activities and to public administration. His was a "choice of life" which in those days called for sacrifices and forgoing not only personal, but also for the family. He left the post at just 46 when he thought the time was right to leave way for fresher and younger energy.

He bought Casanova di Pescille in 1986 and after careful restoration, turned it into one of the most beautiful farm holiday houses in San Gimignano.

Roberto Fanciullini

Ivo Fanciullini, Mayor of San Gimignano between 1955 and 1972