San Godenzo, with a population of about 1,200 inhabitants, is the vastest town in the Val di Sieve and it is in the province of Florence at 404 m. of altitude.

The Benedictine abbey of San Godenzo can be admired in this town that has recently entered the National Park of the Casentino Forests, while the churches of San Giorgio a Petrognano and of San Martino can be visited in the surroundings.
The name of San Godenzo comes from San Gaudenzio, a hermit who lived on the mountains around the chief town between the V and the VI centuries. In effect, the origins of the centre are traced back to the construction of a Benedictine abbey that finished around 1029. The first built-up area developed around the abbey.
In the XIV century, San Godenzo was one of the places where the Ghibellines and the Florentine exiles met. Also Dante Alighieri participated to a famous meeting held in the abbey in 1302 and he and other noble Florentine families asked for the intervention of the Guidi and of the Ubaldini, powerful feudatories of the Florentine countryside. Then, the Guidi were the upright rulers of San Godenzo until they ceded the village and the surrounding territory in 1344. From that moment on, San Godenzo became a community, first, in 1356 and, later, an "Uffizialato" submitted to the Vicariate of Scarperia. Lastly, it became a town hall in 1500.
In the meantime, the decline of the abbey took place and it was mainly due to the Benedictines who left the area. In 1482, the monastery was included within the jurisdiction of the Ss. Annunziata of Florence and the new religious congregation of the Serviti was founded and took possession of the structure. The Serviti remained in San Godenzo until 1808, the year all the religious orders were suppressed by the French emperor Napoleon who at that time exercised a remarkable influence on the newly born Kingdom of Etruria.
After two hundred years of the Medici's dominion, the Lorraine came to Tuscany. The Grand Duchy existed until the Unity of Italy, exception made for the short parenthesis of the above-said Kingdom of Etruria. The Austrian family worked a lot on the extension and the improvement of the communications, which also involved San Godenzo. In 1836, under Leopoldo II, the Forlivese was finished. It was important road connected Tuscany with Romagna and crossed the territories of the town. Also the Muraglione was built, namely a structure that protected the post for the change of horses from the strong winds typical of those places.
In the modern times, San Godenzo was one of the areas crossed by the "Gothic Line", the border within which the Nazi-Fascist occupying troops defended from the progress of the Allies' army. Fires, pillages and destructions devastated the territory of the town and its chief town that was completely rebuilt in 1945.