The town of Fucecchio is in the province of Florence and has a population of 20,000 inhabitants. The famous journalist Indro Montanelli was born here and the town has dedicated the Palazzo della Volta to this illustrious citizen. Inside, Montanelli's office, where he had worked for years, has been reproduced.

The origins of the town are linked to the counts Cadolingi, a powerful family from Pistoia who came here for the prestige and power that they had been taken away by the Bishop of Pistoia once he came to power. The Cadolingi established the pivot of their new territorial seigniory in Fucecchio, which was chosen for its position equidistant from the big Tuscan cities. Around the year 1000, these Pistoia-born nobles raised the castle of Salamarzana in this land abundant with roads and rivers. This structure was near the church of San Salvatore, present here since the first half of the X century, and Borgonuovo, a small town from where the modern Fucecchio developed.
Still in the XI century, the Cadolingi founded a Benedictine monastery that soon accumulated a great wealth to the extent that in 1086, once it was handed down to the Vallombrosano order, Gregorio VII put it under the direct control of the Holy See. Then, the monastery was transferred to on one of the hills surrounding the castle to avoid the continuous alluvia of the Arno river. With the disappearance of the Cadolingi in 1113 it became the institutional point of reference until the end of the century when the town became a city-state.The following century marked the definitive decline of the convent and the population expansion towards the Arno del Castello.
In 1314, Fucecchio tried to get free from the dominion of Lucca and ended up by submitting to Florence in 1330. Later on, the castle and the other nearby centres were affected by a plague epidemic that entailed the population drop in most of Europe around the half of the XIV century.
The depopulation due to the numerous wars between the big Tuscan towns is to be added, and in the case of Fucecchio it took the shape of the abandon of whole villages and rural areas. The repopulation took place in the XVI century with the arrival of important Florentine landowners who bought lands at low costs. Among them there were the Medici, too. With the new population increase, also the enlargement of ancient worship places and the building of new churches took place. Between the XV and the XVII centuries the Oratory of the Vergine della Ferruzza, the oratory of San Rocco "dentro e fuori le mura" and the Franciscan Convent of the Virgin Mary were born.
The XVIII century and the arrival of the Lorraine gave a new boost to the growth of Fucecchio that recovered ancient farming lands that had turned into swamps and benefited from the privatization of one third of the town's estates.
During the Second World War, Fucecchio endured heavy bombardments that caused the destruction of the Torre di Castruccio, that dated to the XIV century, as well as serious damage to the fortress. Yet, the dark chapter of the town's story of war remains the killing if 175 men, women and children occurred near the Padule carried out by the Nazi-Fascist army in August 1944. After the war, Fucecchio experienced a real "industrial revolution" with the development of the shoe industry.