Tavarnelle

Church of Santa Lucia al Borghetto

History of Tavarnelle

The first mention of the town of Tavarnelle dates back to a map of the year 780, with the name Tabernulae, possibly referring to the taverns located here on the road from Florence to Siena, but a much older origin is likely. In the square in front of the Church of S. Pietro in Bossolo, previously S. Petrus in Pixide and built towards the middle of the eleventh century, ruins have been found that are thought to belong to a church built in the fourth century, and tombstone belonging to the tomb of Almemanna, spouse of Flavius Faustinanus, has been found, dating back to 424. The Val di Pesa, as well as the neighbouring Val d'Elsa, was already densely populated in the eight and seventh centuries BC, and quite important Etruscan settlements have been discovered in the area. The town of Tavarnelle then developed with the union of three mediaeval hamlets: Tavarnelle, Borghetto and Mocale, located on crossroads between Florence and the mediaeval Via Francigena road in Val d'Elsa, later known as Strada Romana, from Rome to beyond the Alps.

Although mediaeval traces of the town are unfortunately lost, Tavarnelle's importance is also confirmed by the building, in the first half of the thirteenth century, of the Franciscan Convent of the Borghetto.

The village of Sambuca, too, was very important and strategic - at the intersection of the road from Florence to Sienna and the one from Val di Greve towards Val d'Elsa - and the settlements of San Donato in Poggio, one of the principal fortified settlements in the area, and of remarkable importance because it was located on the most direct route from the Strada Romana to the one between Florence and Sienna. 

Pieve di San Donato in Poggio

The Church of San Donato is mentioned in a document of 989, with a castle erected in 1033 on the hilltop between Val di Pesa and Val d'Elsa. The geographically strategic position determined the building of walled settlements to control roads and possessions on the easy-to-defend hilltops; whereas villages open to travellers and commerce arose on the level ridges near crossing points at rivers and main roads. Following the reconstruction of the ancient bridge of Romigliano sulla Pesa near Sambuca in 1415, commerce increased notably. In 1898 Tavarnelle became a municipality, aggregating the parishes of Sambuca and San Donato (which had previously been governed by Barberino Val d'Elsa).

Pieve di San Piero in Bossolo

Badia a Passignano

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