The village was private property of the Company Montecatini (later Montedison and eventually Solmine) until 1976, when it became public ground under the municipality of Massa Marittima. The history of the village is intimately connected with the mining activity.
After a series of researches started at the end of the nineteenth century, two huge pyrite deposits were discovered in the ’30s; this finding marked the beginning of the pre-existing facilities expansion and the creation of a mining village, built between 1933 and 1936.
The Director’s house was built in the upper part of the village, while the miners used to live in the lower part, in blocks of houses or in one-floor buildings divided into many small bedrooms (for those without family). In the village were also built a church and a groceries.
The last mine in Niccioleta was closed in 1992.
In the summer of 2023 Niccioleta became part of the ‘Network of the Landscapes of Memory’, which promotes the protection and enhancement of places of memory, committed to spreading historical knowledge and civic awareness among the public.
With this in mind, 15 information panels have been set up to accompany the visitor on a discovery of the main architectural structures of the typical mining village: the workhouse, the so-called “camerotti”, the storeroom, the workers’ buildings, the air-raid shelter, and the director’s villa, up to the symbolic places of the reprisal that gave rise to the massacre of the 83 Martyrs of Niccioleta. The texts of the panels, in Italian and English, can also be listened to by downloading the dual-language audio guide directly from izi.travel.
