Loro Ciuffenna

The village carries two names, and the second belongs to a torrent. Loro is attested in 1050 and comes from the Latin laurus, the laurel, which indeed stands in the arms; Ciuffenna appears in 1037 as Iofinne and goes back to the Roman personal name Clufennius, probably of Etruscan origin. The two were joined only in 1863. Etruscan too is the name of nearby Gropina, perhaps from Krupina. Up here ran the Cassia Vetus, and as long as it did, trade flourished; when towards the end of the 2nd century BC the Cassia Adrianea replaced it, easier and more direct along the valley floor, the hill communities were left at the margin in favour of the centres near the new road.

Water has left more traces than the road. The mill of Loro, fed by the Ciuffenna, was built in 1100; along the Agna of Pratovalle a document of 6 July 1240 from the monastery of Santa Trinita in Alpe records that abbot Guido granted the rector of the church of Santa Maria di Faeto the use of the water and of the bank to build a mill that would belong to the church. Of those mills, walls and names remain. At Gropina the pieve of San Pietro, of the 12th century, is a national monument; and along the Pratovalle road stands the maestà of Caneto, a chapel raised for the plague of 1631 and partly collapsed in 1966.