The patron saint of Piombino is Saint Anastasia, celebrated on 8 May: in the 17th century a large town convent was named after her, of which the cloister and some inscriptions still survive today, before in 1805 the princess of Piombino, Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, had its church deconsecrated to make way for a modern hospital.
The very name Piombino is deeply tied to Populonia, the ancient port city that was the most important of the Etruscan Dodecapolis, founded on the northern slope of Monte Massoncello: according to the most accepted hypothesis, «Piombino» derives from «Populino», little Populonia. The Etruscan city, already described as «dead» by the poet Rutilius Namatianus in the 5th century, was sacked in 546 by Totila's Goths and in 573 by the Lombards, who forced Bishop Cerbonius to take refuge on the island of Elba, from which Piombino is separated by the narrow channel that also marks the boundary between the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas. The main centre of the Val di Cornia, the town became in the modern era Tuscany's leading centre of the steel industry, and is today among Italy's most important ports for passenger traffic.
