INGROSSAZIONE. – It is the right by which, through compensation in land and money, during the communal period, a private individual could rectify the boundaries of his property and obtain access to it across a public road.
It was created by communal governments in order to eliminate excessive fragmentation of property, securing for it, by means of a better configuration, a lesser burden of servitudes. For the protection of those expropriated, public officials called “ingrossatori” or “estimatori” were appointed, entrusted with the valuation of lands to be expropriated, and whose reports had executive force.
They were regarded as equal in status to the electors of the podestà and enjoyed a notable economic position, deriving from their occupation as dealers in real estate. They also had their own notaries, who, together with them, were required to take an oath concerning the valuations for which they received commissions from the Comune. The i. is attested from the twelfth century onward, and its usefulness is recognized by a large part of the city statutes of the following century. This institution is still found in the Modenese legislation of 1772 and in that of Lucca of 1802.