The town of Sesto Fiorentino is in the province of Florence and it has a population of about 45,800 inhabitants. It is much known for its ceramics and houses numerous artistic places such as the Church of San Martino, Palazzo Pretorio and the Graves in Tholos.

This built-up area developed along the Cassia way in the Roman times with the name of "Sextus ab urbe lapis" on what probably had been an ancient Etruscan settlement inhabited in prehistoric times, too. Roman legionaries arrived here and they were attributed farms to be cultivated after the reclamation works and the "division in centuries" of the surrounding lands. The aqueduct that supplied the nearby Florentia with water also crossed the territory of "Sextus".
With the arrival of Christianity, the first places of worship started to rise. Around one of these, the Parish of San Martino, the population's social and political life developed. Around the year 1000, the town began to look like a fortified village with the construction of the first tower-houses.
During the period of the Florentine Republic, Sesto became a town hall and, consequently, the Palazzo Pretorio was raised. Yet, this town suffered from its geographical closeness to the chief-town.
In the XIV century it underwent numerous pillages and its citizens were often obliged to look for a refuge in the nearby castles to avoid the incursions of bandits, mercenaries and armies, that were enemies of Florence.
Nevertheless, the Renaissance implied the flourishing of a well-developed agricultural economy and of activities linked to the reception of pilgrims ("ospitali", taverns and hotels) as well as the building of a remarkable number of residences, villas and rural houses carried out by the noble Florentine families. This patrimony is still visible in the territory of the town.
In the XVIII century, the "Manifattura di Doccia" was born, and it was an artistic movement of ceramists grown around the figure of the Marquis Ginori, whose precious porcelains are still exposed in the town's Museo Richard Ginori of the Manifattura di Doccia.
The agricultural development linked to the industrial progress make of Sesto a lively and dynamic centre that assumed its current town planning in1848 with the building of the railway connecting Florence to Prato and that splits the town in two.
After the Unity of Italy, Sesto finally became an autonomous town and various cultural associations began to flourish in the city. They were particularly linked to ceramics and to a growing workers' movement. The latter was the cause of intense fights characterized by strikes and tumults that were often suppressed in blood at the end of the XIX century.