The town of Incisa Valdarno is on the Arno's left bank to the South-East of the province of Florence. With its 5,200 inhabitants, it houses the Oratorio of the Crocifisso, the Museum of Sacred Art and the Conventual Complex of the Ss. Cosma and Damiano al Vivaio.

The name of "Incisa" can refer to a peculiar characteristic of the Arno, namely its rock stratifications that were called "saxa incisa" in Latin and they were due to the erosion of water. Outside the town numerous finds of the Etruscans have been found, but also the Romans lived in this area. They decided to conquer the Valdarno because of its renown as an ideal place for trade and agriculture.
Around the XII century, a small village grew near a castle and the Florentines fortified it for the first time in 1224 to tame the pressure exercised by the nearby town of Figghine, the currently called Figline Valdarno.
In 1294, Incisa also became a city-state and a town hall. Since the XIV century the town was the scene of bloody clashes. Some invasions are particularly remembered: the invasion by the Pisans and by the English mercenaries with John Ackwood as their leader in 1363 and the more violent invasion of the Spanish in the frame of their campaign against the Florentine Republic in the first half of the XVI century.
The remains of a bridge are still visible. It is famous for the episode of the young girl Lucrezia Mazzanti who preferred to commit suicide by throwing herself in the river rather than letting the Spanish troops headed by the prince D'orange capture her.
Furthermore, there was another invasion by Napoleon's troops at the beginning of the XIX century and it culminated with the Restoration of 1814, when the French abandoned the Kingdom of Etruria that they had founded in Tuscany, so that the region went in the hands of the Lorraine again. Ten years later, Incisa was incorporated to the town of Figline with which it self-proclaimed its annexation to the Kingdom of Italy through a plebiscite. The town was raised to the status of independent town after the Unity of Italy and it got its current name of Incisa Valdarno. The town also hosted the famous man of letters Francesco Petrarca, one of the fathers of the Italian tongue and of the "Dolce Stil Novo", a medieval poetry current, which also Dante Alighieri as a young man belonged to. His father's room, where the poet passed his youth is still visible in the upper part of the castle. Outside, it is possible to visit one of the most ancient churches of the Valdarno, the church of San Vito in Loppiano with a very well preserved Roman structure.