The church of San Fabiano on the estate dates from the year 867 and is dedicated to Pope Fabian, one of the first Christian martyrs killed in the Coliseum.
When Count Giuseppe and Countess Giovanna Fiorentini bought the San Fabiano farm estate,[1] there were some 300 people farming the land, producing 180,000 liters of wine yearly, breeding Chianina cows, producing meat for the local specialty, the Fiorentina steak, pigs, pheasants, and chickens.
[2] In 1956, Fiorentini acquired better equipment and reduced the agricultural activities to a core business of crops.
In 1963, the Italian government introduced drastic reforms of the agricultural regulations, requiring estate owners and landlords to hire the farmers working the land, and pay them a salary.
As a result of the reforms, the farmers were forced to leave the land, and twenty-five farmhouses around the castle were abandoned.