Castel Focognano

At Socana, digging between 1966 and 1972, an Etruscan temple came to light, forty metres long, with its twelve steps and, in front of it, the altar: a rectangle of stones held together with lead clamps, with a round hollow in the middle, where kids, lambs and boars were sacrificed — their bones and teeth were found. Over the temple the Christians built three churches, one after another.

Beside it stands a cylindrical Roman tower of the first century before Christ: it was for signalling, with mirrors by day and fire by night, one of six between here and Arezzo. The comune is called Castel Focognano but its main town is Rassina, where in the sixties a cement works was built that became the engine of the whole valley; in 1992 the Arno flooded it.