Rufina in Tuscany

The town of Rufina is in the Val di Sieve in the province of Florence at about 115 m. a.s.l. and it has a population of 6,800 inhabitants. This is a mainly hilly place where an excellent Chianti wine is produced.

Villa Budini can be admired in the town, while in the immediate surroundings the castle of Falgano and the churches of Santo Stefano a Castiglioni and San Bartolomeo a Pomino can be visited.
The modern town of the town of Rufina, which has been instituted later than other nearby centres, includes some parts of the medieval parishes of Castiglioni, Pomino, Diacceto and Rata. This area was divided in the feudal times. Part of it was within the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Fiesole ad the other was under the control of the lineage of the Counts Guidi, powerful feudatories and members of the belligerent rural aristocracy that dominated on the Florentine countryside before the growth of the Republic of Florence.
It can be said that the castle of Rufina, which at the time was a co-ownership between the two seigniories before it passed in the hands of the powerful bishop of Fiesole in the XIII century, was the original nucleus of the modern chief town. The references on the bishop's dominion over the area is constituted of two papal bulls issued in 1103 and in 1134. There are more evidences on the Guidi, in particular in the XI and the XII centuries, but, later than the half of the XIII century, there is not any trace of them in the area near the castle of Rufina.
In 1311, after the Florentine Republic conquered Rufina, it was annexed to the League of Diacceto (the modern Pontassieve). Turicchi, namely part of the parish of Rata, was an exception and it formally depended upon the bishop of Fiesole until the second half of the XVIII century. Soon after, the League became a Town Hall. It was born from the union of the districts of the territories corresponding to Diacceto, Monteloro and Rignano with the reforms of the Lorraine of 1736.
The territory of Rufina detached from Diacceto in the Napoleonic period. Therefore, it created the new community of Pelago. Only in 1915, a remarkable part of the territory was separated from it and it included Rufina, Casi, Falgano, Castiglione, Petrognano, Pinzano, Agna, Cigliano, Pomino, Vico, Tosina and Turicchi. The town of Rufina was born from this new territorial districts.