Barberino Val D'Elsa

The history of Barberino Val d'Elsa is lost in the Middle Ages: the village with its peculiar elliptical layout stands on the Strada Regia Romana that connected Rome and Florence. This road, which now touches the town in its eastern part, once crossed it: merchants and pilgrims were therefore obliged to pass, and sometimes even to stop, inside it and from this necessity arose, close to the Porta Fiorentina, the Spedale dei Pellegrini (Pilgrims' Hospice) which, together with the inns and churches in which to restore body and spirit, represented for a long time a fundamental place of refreshment. In the surroundings of the village, the parish church of Sant'Appiano, one of the oldest churches in the Florentine countryside, remains to narrate the atmosphere of the past.