Montefioralle historical timeline

6 February 1085. The oldest documented record of the place: an act drawn up "in castro Monteficalli".

The early 12th century. The castle is cited several more times as a curtis in which official acts were drawn up — documents preserved in the archive of the Badia a Passignano.

4 March 1122, and the names in it. One of those documents is of particular interest. It certifies the sale of a property between a certain Benne di Gerardo and Gisla di Guinildo together with her mother Ermengarda del fu Rolando. The people in this transaction all bear names of Germanic origin, so much so that it has been hypothesised that they were members of a noble family of Lombard stock. A property deed is doing the work of an ethnographic document.

Later owners. The castle and borgo of Monteficalle belonged in succession to the Ricasoli, the Benci di Figline and the Gherardini di Montagliari.

Why it mattered. The borgo stood on the via del Guardingo di Passignano, the road that connected the three principal valleys of the southern Florentine contado — the Val d'Elsa, the Val di Pesa and the Val di Greve — with the Valdarno Superiore.

The 18th century. Monteficalle became Montefioralle. The modern name is three centuries old; the place is a thousand.

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