The municipality of Pomarance is in the province of Pisa at 370 m asl of altitude and it has a population of about 6000 inhabitants. Inside, the works by Pomarancio, preserved inside the Church of St. John The Bapstist, can be seen, as well as the Palazzo Pretorio and the Stronghold of Silano.

Set on the Metalliferous Hills of Pisa, this village has a medieval origin as long as it can be inferred from its current structure. Nevertheless, numerous testimonies show that the area was frequented and inhabited up to 800 years before Christ.
In 1912, several ancient finds dating to the Neolithic era were discovered. They are archaic tombs that came to light after some excavations made in Arenicci, near the "Le Stoppiacce" farm.
On the contrary, some objects, which probably belonged to funeral equipment dating to the so-called Villanovan civilization, were unearthed near the "La Colombaia" farm in 1956. Some traces of this ancient population that preceded the Etruscan-Roman dominion in Central Italy had already been individuated in 1889.
The "Stele of Larthi Atharnies", which was casually found in the Moscatelle farm, is particularly interesting and it is currently exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Florence. The Etruscan civilization also left evidence of its presence here.
In 1934, other excavations allowed to find some Etruscan tombs of the V-IV centuries B. C. under the parsonage of the St. John The Baptist's Parish Church in Pomarance. Others were discovered in St. Piero in 1969. These extraordinarily interesting archaeological sites can be visited, today.
Instead, there is very little information about the etymology of the toponym "Pomarance" other than it is the result of various denominations (Ripamaranci, Ripamarancie, Ripomaranci and Le Pomarancie) that indicated the medieval castle corresponding to the current chief-town. According to some historians, the origin of the name is linked to the cultivation of oranges in the Late Middle Ages.
Others maintain that the word comes from the vulgar tongue expression "Ripa Marrazza" or "Ripa Marrancia", namely "left rock" in reference to its position at the left of the Cecina River.
The village was called "Ripamaranci" in a story written by a group of followers of St. Regolo, one of the personalities coming from Africa who evangelized Tuscany. They stopped here around the first half of the VI century A.D., before reaching and settling Volterra.
Pomarance is surely one of the most ancient fortalices in Volterra and it was first quoted in the X century. It was contended between the city-state and the Volterra's Episcopate for long.
The latter was supported by the German monarchy, but Pomarance remained under the aegis of the laic authority until 1472.
In this year, it was annexed to the Republic of Florence's dominions after Volterra was defeated for the possession of alum mines. With the arrival of the Medici and the creation of the Grand Duchy in 1513, Pomarance acquired its status as an independent city-state and it was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.