The municipality of Capoliveri, on the Island of Elba, has a population of little less than 3000 inhabitants. Among its buildings, the Madonna delle Grazie's Sanctuary, the XVI-century Madonna della Neve's Church and the XVII-century Focardo Fortress can be visited.

Most of the population live in the chief town, built as a protected and isolated stronghold in the Etruscan-Roman period with the aim of garrisoning the two sea areas of the Island of Elba.
In effect, it is possible to control both the western and the eastern coastal sides from the fortress and Portoferraio is visible from the highest points of the ridge, too. The presence of the Etruscan can be traced in the abundance of iron in the local mines, which was a much-needed material by this ancient population.
In the centuries of the fall of Roman Empire and the beginning of the Barbarian invasions, the Island of Elba was mainly a destination for Tuscan people, who escaped from devastations, and for Christian monks, looking for solitary hermitages or places where to found their first communities.
Therefore, there are not any documentary references providing reliable information. The historical sources began talking of the Island of Elba and Capoliveri in the XII century, when the presence of the fortress, which was the captaincy base, the most important political and military institution on the island, was acknowledged.
In the Middle Ages, the economic and strategic importance of the Island of Elba, governed by the republic of Pisa, was already consolidated. The island was rich in granite and iron and it was the nerve-centre of the links with Sardinia and Corsica. The "burgum Capoliveri" is the most imposing fortification. With the fall of Pisa in the XV century, a new principality ruled by Gherardo Appiani di Piombino, was born, backed by the Spanish monarchy, while the commercial exploitation of mines was managed by Florence.
Consequently, the Spanish and the Florentines' interests eventually divided the island. The area of Portoferraio fell under the control of the Grand Duchy, Longone and Capoliveri were put under the direct influence of Spain, while the Appiani family only kept a very small part of the island. In this period, Turk pirates, who even destroyed its walls in the XVII century, often assaulted the stronghold of Capoliveri.
After being rebuilt and fortunately resisting to the following conflict between France and Spain for the dominion over Longone, it was destroyed once more at the beginning of the XVIII century, during the war between Spain and the Empire of the Hapsburg.
The administrative unification of the Island of Elba took place during the Napoleonic occupation of Tuscany between the XVIII and the XIX centuries. In Capoliveri, a loyal to the Austrian kingdom, the return of the French meant a new era of battles and hard repression. Besides, its countryside started to be depopulated because the young islanders had to conscript and join the revolutionary army.
After the fall of Napoleon, who chose the island as his shelter during his first exile, the administration of Elba Island was handed back to the Hapsburg-Lorraine and the Tuscan Grand Duchy. It is in this period that the small coastal villages became bigger and bigger, while the inland villages of the island, such as Capoliveri, became gradually less important, also for the disappearance of pirates.
On the contrary, the mining activity of Capoliveri experienced a phase of intense recovery in the second half of the XIX century.