The Municipality of Villa Collemandina is in the province of Lucca at an altitude of 549 m asl and it has a population of about 1300 inhabitants. Inside, the church of San Sisto can be admired, while in the near hamlet of Sassorosso, its homonym church can be visited.

Villa Collemandina was harshly disputed between the Etrurians and the Liguri Apuani. The latter succeeded into establishing their domination until the II century B.C., when the Romans broke into here. Yet, the chief town and some hamlets developed in the early Middle Ages around the numerous fortresses that rose to contrast the arrival of the Barbarian tribes. Just one of these tribes settled the territory.
They were the Longobards, who had come with the second wave of Barbarian invasions and who were culturally very different from the Romans, at least until Christianity created a connection between the two populations.
The powerful Lombard family of the Rolandinghi dominated the territory of Villa "Colimundinga" until the year 1256, when the town was united to the free city-state of Castiglione di Garfagnana that was under the protection of Lucca at the time. Nevertheless, the Rolandinghi family maintained a remarkable influence on the political life of Castiglione.
In 1430, the territory was annexed to the Dukedom of Modena that was headed by the Estensi family. With them, Villa Collemandina entered the Unification of Italy (1859), after experiencing a short period of domination under Elisa Bonaparte's principality during the Napoleonic occupation at the end of the XVIII century.
It was in this period, exactly between 1803 and 1806 that Villa Collemandina became one of the chief towns of the city-state and it was chosen after the disappearance of all the town halls that proliferated in every built up area at that time
Today, the parish church of San Sisto, with its wonderful cloister composed of sixteen sandstone columns and used as a sepulchral place in the past, rises instead of the ancient castle. Inside the church, it is possible to admire two precious marble altars, carried out by Nicola Civitali in 1533, and a wooden triptych that was recently restored.