The municipality of Santa Maria al Monte is in the province of Pisa and has a population of about 10000 inhabitants. It is set in an intermediate position among Pisa, Livorno and Florence and it proudly houses historical buildings such as the XV-century St. John the Evangelist's Collegiate Church, the Palazzo Pretorio overlooked by the wonderful Torre dell'Orologio.

The Archiepiscopal Archive of Lucca keeps information about the village dating to 776 A.D., when a church ,dedicated to the Virgin Mary (called "ad Montem"), rose on a hill near the existing chief-town. In 906, a castle had already been arisen which was a feud of Lucca. Definitely, it can be considered one of the first strongholds built in the Valdarno area as well as one of the places from where Christianity was diffused into the rural areas.
Santa Maria a Monte soon consolidated as one important political and religious power centre. Its current topographic appearance is the result of the continuous demographic development that the town experienced around its central nucleus and its church.
Nevertheless, the involvement in the disputes among Lucca, Pisa and Florence, which started in the XIII century, did not miss. The citadel was occupied in 1261 and it was taken back by Lucca thanks to the ability of the great leader of mercenaries Castruccio Castracani.
The Florentine expansion into the Valdarno led to the siege and the complete demolition of the castle in 1327. Yet, already in 1355 Florence and Santa Maria laid the foundations of a lasting alliance and the village was fortified once more with three layers of wall, plus a fourth layer that was never finished.
Essentially, the domination of Florence aimed at enhancing the agricultural activity in the subjected Pisan country. Therefore, also Santa Maria started to be increasingly shaped as a rural "comunitas", without having a further urban development.
In the Grand-ducal period, the sharecropping phenomenon grew and it is still today evidenced by the fragmentation of the Santa Maria's countryside into a myriad of farms and farmhouses that the municipality rents to country families.
The current appearance of the town was shaped after the Unification of Italy in 1868, when Montecalvoli was unified to the municipality of Santa Maria. Then, it was established to build a new town-hall at the centre of the town.
This project implied the throwing down of the walls and the construction of a new link road around the old city centre. In 1925, the town and the whole Valdarno shifted from the province of Florence to the province of Pisa.