09 May \ 17 October 2010

Monteaperti place-name is mentioned since 1023, when it was a Berardenghi family's castle. The popularity of its name is linked to the famous battle fought by Sienese and Florentines in the plain between Arbia and Malena torrents, mentioned by Dante in his Divine Comedy ..(Inferno Canto X,85). A memorial pyramid has been placed in the hill that dominates the plain to remind the event.

In the locality of Dofana, according to tradition, at the beginning of the fourth century Saint Ansano was recognized as martyr, evangelist and patron of Siena. A church was constructed on the place of the martyr, where the body of the saint was held until 1108, when it was transferred to the cathedral of Siena. The most antique record of the "ecclesia sancti Ansani" dates back to 650. An oratory of S. Ansano is noted in the donations made by count Winigis to the Berardenga abbey in the act of its' foundation, in 867. In 1504, the chapel was almost in ruins and in 1507-08 the Bishop of Arezzo gave permission to restore it, the motive for which some scholars from the 800's had promoted the name of Baldassarre Peruzzi. In 1575, it seems that the building was regularly in order. The last restorations of the Oratory of Saint Ansano were carried out in 1931 and in 1980. The chapel, situated a couple of hundred metres from the church dedicated to the same saint, shows an octagonal layout, extended on the opposite side of the entrance with a rectangular collection box. An epigraph situated by the collection box remembers the restorations, of the end of the century, of the building and of the genius of Pietro Lorenzetti, now conserved in the art gallery of Siena.

References to the Church of Sant'Ansano in Dofana are found in documents dated 1139, concerning a list of places which were quarrelled by Siena and Arezzo bishops having a cantury-old contest for some churches possession. The building has been restored in 1190 and re-built (or re-restored) in 1380. Moreover in 1529 it has been re-built again. The "new" three aisles church contains in the left aisle altar Sant'Ansano statue in a niche and, beneath, a shrine with the Saint's relics.