Tradition has it that the Ligurian tribe of the Magelli were the first to inhabit the area, but certainly, when they arrived, before the Etruscan invasion, other peoples were already permanently residing in the area. In fact, some human settlements dating back to the Paleolithic have been found near Galliano di Mugello, Barberino di Mugello, Londa and San Piero a Sieve. If anything, scholars agree in relating the name of this tribe to the origin of the term “Mugello” already used in literary sources of the 6th century AD to identify the region. The Magelli were therefore followed by the Etruscans who, most likely, traced the first outline of the road network of the area. A series of routes that originally connected Fiesole to Felsine - today's Bologna - and which were then expanded and improved by the Romans, have had a great importance in the history of Mugello. Numerous traces of the Etruscan people remain, such as the small bronze idol depicting "a woman with a pointed cap, a long, tight-fitting dress, in the act of walking" found in 1870 in a well near Ronta (Borgo San Lorenzo). Or the numerous earthenware fragments returned from the "Rovinaie" ditch and the important archaeological site of "Poggio Colla" near Vicchio. The Roman settlement in Mugello dates back to the 3rd-4th century BC. It too was quite widespread in the area, as evidenced by the discovery here and there of Roman vessels. of the numerous archaeological finds (coins, burial urns, remains of tombs and walls) and the frequent occurrence of toponyms that have the predial termination in -ano and -ana such as Cerliano, Figliano, Marcoiano, Galliano and Lucignano which derive directly from Roman fiscal and administrative practice. However, Mugello in this era did not have a central role in the context of the empire, probably the hilly environment was poorly suited to the extensive cultivation typical of the imperial age and therefore remained a marginal area.
In 476, with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, all of Italy was invaded by the Germanic peoples and news of the Mugello became vague. Nearby Florence, if it had managed to narrowly escape the hordes of Radagaisus, crushed under the walls of the city by Stilicho in 406, was instead destroyed by the Ostrogoth Totila in 552 and at the end of the 6th century it fell under Lombard rule like the rest of northern and central Italy. Only the territories that coincide with present-day Lazio, part of Umbria and the Adriatic coast from Venice to Ancona up to the Apennine ridge remained outside the Lombard kingdom and remained in the hands of the Byzantine exarchs who remained in Ravenna. So Mugello is now in a border area, the object of strong tensions and continuous attacks by the two enemy armies. And if it once constituted an important communication route towards the north, now the instability of the area advises the Lombard kings to use a safer passage to the west for their movements, through the Cisa, thus increasing the importance of the road that, coming from Milan and Pavia, crosses Piacenza and ends up south beyond the Apennines at Sarzana. The so-called Via Francigena which will then become in this way the main axis of communications between the countries of north-west Europe and Rome. The capital itself of the Lombard Duchy of Tuscany will become Lucca, crossed precisely by this road and this will relegate Florence, and together with it the Mugello which in the following centuries will share its largely the fate, still in a secondary role. At least until the conquest of the Lombard kingdom by the Carolingians. A proclamation by Charlemagne in 801 conferred the "lordship of the joyful country of Mugello" on the Ubaldini family. The Carolingians, after the conquest of the Lombard kingdom, established a hierarchy in Italy essentially divided into two levels. That is, made up of a count, who administers a territory coinciding with that of the diocese, and simple lords, vassals of the count and the king, who preside over and direct their own dominion on the model of the manorial system. A hierarchy which was then counterpointed by the ecclesiastical government whose administrative structure, inherited directly from Roman jurisdiction, revolved around the parish church. Both were the expression of a feudal power that characterized all of early medieval Tuscany and with it also the Mugello, where the phenomenon is also witnessed by the flourishing of numerous fortified centers in this period, a direct consequence of the affirmation of powerful local lords.
In the Mugello of the 9th century we find the Alberti and Ubaldini families who dominate the central-western sector and the authoritative family of the Counts Guidi, undisputed lords of Casentino, who prevails in the east. Soon, however, these representatives of feudal power will find themselves in open conflict with the expansionist aims of Florence. Already in 854 Lothair I reunites the counties of Florence and Fiesole into a single body, effectively decreeing the decline of the latter. Florence is now in full economic growth, with a county roughly twice the size of the other Tuscan counties that extends from the top of the Apennines in the north, to the surroundings of Siena in the south and from the county of Arezzo in the east to that of Pistoia in the west. Among other things, Florence in this period became the scene of important events and a leading advocate of the reform of a church that had fallen into the hands of the laity. It was in fact the Florentine Giovanni Gualberto, founder of the monastery of Vallombrosa, finding the support of the great mass of the population, who soon gave life to the first great Italian reform order (1038) and even later it was again the Florentine community that supported the Countess Matilda, Marchioness of Tuscany, and with her Pope Gregory VII in the dramatic conflict that opposed the church to Henry IV. In this juncture the imperial troops besieged the city for ten days but in the end they were forced to retreat humiliated and such a victory, the resistance to the most prestigious of attackers, would make Florence enter fully into history.
In the 12th century the Florentine community was now matured, it became aware of itself and its strength and, also by virtue of the privileges granted by Countess Matilda and the contemporary disappearance of key figures of power, it began to decisively free itself from the authority constituted to autonomously and fully represent Florence and its county. It is significant to underline that the first action implemented by this embryonic form of the free Florentine municipality was the capture and destruction of the ancient Fiesole, of which only the cathedral and the bishop's residence remained standing. A brutal affirmation of supremacy of which all contemporaries became aware. Florence was therefore becoming an independent city-state. But if acquiring a certain political autonomy had been easy, given the distance from the imperial authority, the same was not true of direct control of the county. Feudatories large and small, lay and ecclesiastical, representatives of the empire in a climate of total anarchy exercised de facto control of the resources of the territory and the roads. Hindering the growth of the city and causing inevitable conflict situations. The feudal lords of the countryside on one side and the city's mercantile bourgeoisie on the other represented not only two different social classes but above all opposing economic interests that excluded the possibility of agreement between the parties. On the one hand, the city in rapid economic growth needed safe and free routes for its trade while the lords of the countryside attempted to reaffirm their dominion of the territory with duties and raids. The survival of one would always and in any case represent a threat to the other. Significant was the struggle between Florence and the Ubaldini family, always ready to do battle and ally themselves with all the enemies of the city. Mugello was an obligatory stop for all goods and merchants going to Emilia and Lombardy and therefore a nerve centre for trade towards the north. The struggle was therefore long and ruthless. The fortress of Montaccianico, the most powerful castle of the Ubaldini, placed to guard a road already traced in Roman times and which with the development of the Tuscan capital in the 12th century had begun to assume importance, was destroyed for the first time in 1258 and immediately rebuilt with a double ring of walls.
The city then returned to the attack with two massive expeditions in 1272 and 1273, but without weakening the power of the feudal family so much so that in 1302 hostilities were opened again. This centuries-old struggle could have lasted forever if in 1306, with a pre-ordained plan already successfully tested in the Valdarno in 1299, in concert with yet another siege and yet another destruction of the castle, the Florentine Republic had not provided for the foundation of two “New Lands”: Castel San Barnaba, later to become Scarperia, and Castrum florentia, Firenzuola. A well-defined and carefully studied project that aimed to catalyze the friendly forces dispersed throughout the territory and at the same time to remove those of the adversary by granting those who inhabited the new colonies freedom, protection and the promise of development. As well as attractive and immediate concrete advantages such as, for example, exemption from paying any tax for a period of ten years. It seems that Firenzuola absorbed the two communities of Tirli and Bordignano, while the inhabitants of Sant'Agata, Fagna, San Giovanni Maggiore and Ferrone fed the population of Scarperia. Not much different was the epilogue on the eastern front where, after having destroyed the castles of Ampinana, Gattaia, Filiccione and Montesassi that belonged to the Conti Guidi family, the Florentine Republic decided in 1324 to fortify the few houses built by the exiles of these castles on a modest hill near the Sieve, where Vicchio stands today, and to take the inhabitants under its protection. During the 14th and 15th centuries the region went through a long period of relative prosperity, also due to the numerous landed properties of important and wealthy peasant families, among which the Medici family stands out. Originally from Mugello, the Medici invested huge financial resources here to consolidate their presence around Florence. During the period of the Medici Grand Duchy, the territory experienced ups and downs but was substantially neglected and impoverished, also due to the frequency of famines and plagues which were often associated with war events. With the subsequent Grand Duchy of Lorraine, and above all by Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine (who was responsible, among other things, for the opening of the Muraglione road (Passo del Muraglione), Mugello was affected by an economic revival and an administrative reform with which the leagues and the Vicariate of Scarperia were abolished and, above all, numerous religious brotherhoods and companies. Finally, in 1860, following the plebiscite, Mugello (with all of Tuscany) was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia with which the most recent history of the territory began. In the 1900s, Mugello was characterised by events linked to the Second World War, with the great battles linked to the Gothic Line and the great resistance movement. The 20th century also saw important figures operate in Mugello from both a cultural and artistic point of view.