San Giusto Canavese

San Giusto Canavese is a young town whose territory belonged to the neighbouring town of San Giorgio. Before independence, San Giusto was actually a village of San Giorgio with the name of Gerbo Grande di San Giorgio. In fact, its inhabitants are still called, traditionally, gerbolins (they are also called by the popular Piedmontese nickname of Tirapere, or " Tira-pietre" in Italian). After at least two centuries of fights and battles against the neighbouring municipality, fought with slingshot and stones, on October 9th 1778 King Vittorio Amedeo III issued the decree of dismemberment and the Gerbo Grande thus obtained the independence of San Giorgio with the name of Canton of the Gerbo Grande. A little less than a year later, King Vittorio Amedeo III himself, with a license dated September 3rd 1779, recognized the name of San Giusto to the new municipality, chosen by the inhabitants as their protector. In 1862 the name of the municipality was definitively changed to San Giusto Canavese by decree of King Vittorio Emanuele II to avoid confusion with other "San Giusto" present in the Italian territory...... The contrast between the communities of San Giorgio and Gerbo Grande was found both in the political-religious sphere and in that of class struggle, since the Sangiustesi were composed mostly of peasants, merchants and small landowners, while the Sangiorgesi were represented by nobles (Casata dei Biandrate) and artisans from the village of the Biandrate castle. The aspiration of the Gerbolini (inhabitants of Gerbo, o'l Zerb) was to achieve both the independence of their municipality and that of their parish and, to achieve this, they fought a bloody and sometimes violent struggle that divided the two communities (San Giusto and San Giorgio), only 3 kilometres apart, and gave the Sangiustesi the nickname of Tirando of the type of "weapons" they used in battle.