The town of Sassetta is in the province of Livorno just near the forests of the Val di Cecina and Val di Cornia. It is set at 330 m. a.s.l. and it has a population of about 530 inhabitants. The church of Sant'Andrea testifies the medieval style of this village.

It is supposed that the town originated in the first half of the XII century and it lay on a hill with long rocky slopes as a natural protection for its inhabitants. Originally, he castle was a dominion of the Pannocchia's, who were vassals of the Orlandi of Pisa (the town has their emblem), but the owners of Sassetta changed many times. The Orlandi and their vassals exercised their authority until 1406, when all the towns of the Pisan countryside were annexed to the Florentine republic.
Later, the Orlandi could keep part of their seigniory by swearing loyalty to Florence and selling part of the territory to the Gherardesca. Nevertheless, their story suddenly stopped in 1513, when the brothers Geremia and Ranieri Orlandi were arrested and imprisoned in Florence with the accuse of rebellion. Their goods were confiscated and Sassetta was sold to the "Capitolo dei Canonici" in 1517 while its castle had already been dismantled in 1503.
In 1524, the village was passed on to Filippo Strozzi and the Medici confiscated it again after his betrayal in Montemurlo.
With the growth of the Medici's Tuscan Grand Duchy in 1537, Sassetta was involved in the process of re-feudalization of many territories in the Pisan Maremma with the aim to tame the powerful dynasty of the Della Gherardesca. Among the new rulers of Sassetta, Antonio Ramirez de Montalvo, is worth being cited. He was Spanish knight of the Order of Santo Stefano who arranged the construction of the Palazzo Ramirez de Montalvo between 1565 and 1571 using the basement of the Castle of the Orlandi.
Today, this palace belongs to the region of Tuscany. The town had its own statutes during the territorial reorganization established by the Lorraine who abolished feudalism in the Grand Duchy in the last years of the XVIII century.