Barberino Val d'Elsa is a medieval town between Florence and Siena and it is at 373 m asl of altitude. It has a population of about 4000 inhabitants and among its historic buildings the Palazzo Pretorio, with the emblems of the Podestà, the Parish of San Bartolomeo, the Porta Senese and the Chapel of San Michele Arcangelo can be visited.

One of the documents of the Abbey of Pissignano cited Barberino for the first time in 1054. Yet, the village expanded at the beginning of the XIII century, above all after the destruction of the bordering town of Semifonte, that was razed to the ground in 1202 by the Florentines. They did not want it to be rebuilt and, therefore, they obliged the survived people to move elsewhere.
In the XIV century, Florence controlled Barberino politically and put it under a military garrison, too. At the time of the Florentine Republic, this village became a town-hall.
In 1365, the Ospedale dei Pellegrini was also built because of the intensification of the traffic on the way near the town, walked by wayfarers going to Rome. The Florentines fortified the castle in the ambit of their fights against the nobles of the various countries who were feudatories of the Empire and, consequently, hostile to the Republic and to the autonomy of the city-states.
The Roman-Sienese gate and the Roman one, connected by the main street, characterize the urban structure of the town. This is a characteristic of all the towns in the Valdelsa and it puts into evidence their peculiar intermediate position between the two big Tuscan cities that harshly fought in the XIII century, but that were also allies on some occasions. The Florentine gate was rebuilt, while the one set near Siena remained intact, even though it underwent some changes in the XVIII century, when the nearby little brick bell tower was built. Also the walls of the town have resisted to time since their creation.
Moreover, visiting Barberino gives the occasion to explore the places inside it, since it is abundant in buildings and testimonies of the medieval Vadelsa. Churches, villas, the old farms in Vico d'Elsa, the castle of Poppiano and Marcialla, a small town on top of a hill dividing the Valdelsa from the Val di Pesa and rich in parishes and aristocratic houses, can be visited.
The lovers of the antiquity can also visit Sant' Appiano that, besides housing a very important monumental complex, has preserved some Etruscan tombs dating to the VIII century B.C.