The town of Pieve Fosciana is in the province of Lucca at 369 m. of altitude and it has a population of about 2,300 inhabitants. The parish of St. John the Baptist can be visited inside its territory, while the tower of Sillico and the church of San Magno rise in the surroundings.

Pieve Fosciana is inside the Piano of the "Piano" of the parish, a small valley where an intense agricultural activity is performed. One first settlement had already been created in the area in the Roman times with the name "Fuscus", which was later inherited by the town.
The first reliable information on the town dates to the VIII century. At that time, the Lombards settled the area and the church of the town was a very important parish through which Christianity spread among the rural populations.
The legend tells that the foundation of the "Plebes de Fosciana" was due to the evangelist Saint Frediano, bishop of Lucca in the IV century A.D. The building rose in its current architectural appearance at the beginning of the XII century.
For many years, the parish had been a place of worship visited by the inhabitants of the bordering areas of the Garfagnana. The famous Countess Matilde di Canossa attended it, as well. This place played a particularly important role because here people could be baptised, as a document of the Pope Alexander III dating to 1168 reports.
Around the half of the XV century, Pieve Fosciana subjected to the Dukedom of Modena, ruled by the Estensi, until the Napoleonic invasions at the end of the XVIII century. During the French domination that lasted until 1814, the borders of the town expanded and included Sillico, Bargecchia and Pontecosi. The effects of the passage of the revolutionary army made of Pieve Fosciana one of the patriotic centres par excellence in the Garfagnana.
During the Risorgimento, this chief-town town was the first to hoist the Italian tricolour in 1831. the return of the Estensi was contrasted both in 1848 and in 1859, when the town was eventually annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. Pieve Fosciana's brave inhabitants fought again in 1944-4. their town was one of the first in the Gothic Line that got rid of the Nazi-Fascist occupation.