COMMUNALIE. — Also known as communal holdings, consorterie, partecipanze, università, or vicinie, these are remnants of collective property that, due to natural, ethnic, and demographic needs, have preserved their historical vitality to this day.
Some municipalities, particularly those in mountainous areas, originated from these entities, which previously existed as political and administrative bodies. In collective properties, inhabitants exercised rights of grazing, woodcutting, herbage, and sowing.
As feudalism sought to assert lordly dominion over common goods, leaving the population only with civic use, vicinie of inhabitants formed to defend their autonomy, restricting membership to descendants of the original families of the locality. This occurred with the Emilian partecipanze and that of the woods of Trino Vercellese, which still preserves its ancient characteristics today. In this latter, over 1,300 heads of households of proven Trinese origin exercise the right of woodcutting across 575 hectares of woodland. Similarly, in certain mountainous localities, the territory was divided among the families of the district so that each had its own allotment, which, however, could neither be sold, donated, nor left in benefit *pro remedio animale*. From the 18th century onward, efforts were made to absorb collective lands into municipal properties and extend benefits to families no longer descended from the original members of the *C.* The last law on civic uses, dated 16 June 1927, no. 1766, prohibits the formation of new agricultural università, mandates the ascertainment and liquidation of those civic uses whose existence is harmful or no longer meets the needs of users.