The place that now appears like an obscure and anonymous hamlet, with large apartment blocks lining the narrow street without sidewalks, until the middle of last century was a landmark and meeting point. From documents of the time we know that in the late nineteenth century there was a grocery store and a butcher, while in 1911 a carpenter, a shoemaker and a hairdresser were included in the census.
More recently a public telephone place was opened. In 1908 fourteen members “strictly all workers and farmers”, founded the Consumer Cooperative of Arco del Camicia which remained active until the eighties. Arco del Camicia gave birth in 1903 to the Choral and Mutual Aid Society “Gustavo Modena”.
The name Camicia has ancient origins and is due to the name of the owner of the ancient Osteria del Camicia, mentioned in the Charter of the Captains of the Guelph (1584), and also in the Road Sample 1774; this allocation is also proven by the existence of the surname ‘Camici’, belonging to a family documented in the place until the first decades of the last century. Four farms adjacent to the locality were called ‘Camicia’.
The name Arco appears in more recent times, the first documentation dates back to 1776 and is documented by the Lorenese Land Registry. It can be assumed that its construction took place in those years. In IGM cartography the name appears since 1880.
The buildings of the Camicia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were owned by the Mannini family, and later belonged to the Castellani. In the late eighteenth century Bindo Peruzzi was the owner of a new house with a ground stable, 4 rooms above and a communicating room with the Osteria del Camicia, on the road that goes to Paterno, situated on the main road to Arezzo. The Peruzzi family emblem remains in the property, with its characteristic pears, depicted in a stone panel on the facade of the building to the left of the arch.
