Aulla is a town of the Val di Magra in the province of Massa Carrara and it has a population of about 10,000 inhabitants. Inside, the Fortress of the Brunella, raised in the XIII century and conquered by the Spanish in the XVIII century, can be admired.

The Liguri Apuani settled the area corresponding to the current town in the ancient times. A document dating to 884 and written by a notary of Lucca informs us on the origins of the town's medieval village. It reports that the Count Marquis Adalberto di Toscana built a monastic complex in the area of confluence of two streams, the Aulella and the Magra. This is a territory with a remarkably strategic importance and an authentic crossroads between Tuscany, Liguria and the Emilia region, and it had been the object of the most powerful feudatory aristocracies.
In the centuries after the year 1000, the monastic complex was at the centre of a dispute between the powerful Malaspina, who established a powerful seigniory in Massa, and the equally authoritative bishopric of Luni. The Malaspina succeeded into conquering the territory in 1404, but part of it was included in the Florentine territories.
In 1522, the young man Giovanni dalle Bande Nere started to rule Aulla. Three years later, the Malaspina got possession of the territory again after a harsh fight. In the next centuries and in a calm political period Aulla went through a phase of development due to the intensification of its commercial traffics. After its participation to the Risrogimento uprisings and its entrance into the Kingdom of Italy, the town further enriched thanks to the construction of the railway connecting Parma to La Spezia and of the main road of the Cisa that fostered the traffics.
Besides the above-cited fortress, in the area near Aulla it is possible to go into some places with an important past. One of them is Bibola. It probably has Roman origins and became a Byzantine "castrum" in the Early Middle Ages. Under this small town there are the remains of Burcione. By visiting them, it is possible to point out the vestiges of the ancient Acropolis, of a tower and of the storage tank above which a church had been raised. Another characteristic place is Caprigliola that keeps its XV-century Medicean walls intact. They were built when part of the territory in Aulla was subjugated by Florence.