The remains of the castle of Montale Alto, the parish of San Giovanni Evangelista and the Romanesque abbey of San Salvatore can be seen in Montale, a town in the province of Pistoia with about 10,000 inhabitants. It is set in the Valle dell'Ombrone and it lies both on the plain and on the hills.

At the beginning, Montale was a fortified centre raised by the town of Pistoia during its fights against the feudatories Counts Guidi who lived in the stronghold of Montemurlo and had always been the rulers of the valley crossed by river Ombrone. The new village was given as a seigniory to the Cancellieri.
In 1303, already, the Florentines took possession of the castle at the end of the conflict between the "black" Guelfs of Florence and the "white" Guelfs of Pistoia. Its walls were pulled down and they had never been rebuilt.
Therefore, a new built-up area had developed around the original nucleus and it formally surrendered to Florence in 1351 by becoming the seat of a town hall that also included the territory of Agliana, the other chief town besides Montale.
In the XV century, yet, a bloody civil war raged the town. It was between the supporters of the Panciatichi, a family that had distinguished itself in the XIV century for its defence of the castles in the Alta Montagna of Pistoia, and the followers of the former rulers, the Cancellieri.
The tumults ended and started several times and they only ended in 1539, at the beginning of the Grand Ducal age. With the reforms of 1775 settled by the Grand Duke of Lorraine, Montale became an autonomous "comunitas" that still included Agliana. Its current territory layout was the result of the detachment of Cantagallo, first, in the XIX century, and of Agliana itself, later, in 1913. after World War II, Montale experienced the industrial development caused by the textile sector.