In the area of ​​Fonte Santa you can breathe a healthy and aromatic air and the climate is so mild and temperate that it has always been chosen for hiking and picnics.

One of the traditional skills of the Ripolese territory has been that of the kilnman. Some dozens of pottery kilns were scattered somewhat everywhere from the Arno to the Ema and in the valleys of Grassina and the Isone.

In 1957, the mother abbess Ildegarde Cabitza, compiling the history of the monastery of the Benedictine nuns of Rosano, wrote that, “at the back of the church above the baptismal font was hung an ancient crucifix painted on wood.”

On the morning of Holy Saturday, the older children of Antella and Grassina, in a clay pot, brought the blessed fire to each house of the respective villages. With a tablespoon of the hot embers, coals in the fireplace were lit for the Passover rite.

If in the Pleistocene Epoch of the Quaternary Era, we looked out from the spur of Montisoni or, even higher, from Montemasso, instead of a plain populated with roads, houses and farmland, we would have seen an immense lake with no end.

In 1667, the Grand Duke Cosimo II gave a gift to his brother, Cardinal Francesco Maria Medici. He assigned him the Lappeggi villa. The building had already undergone Buontalenti renovations but the new owner commissioned Anton Maria Ferri to turn it into a place of delight and amusement for himself and his guests.