The place is first mentioned in the tenth century in connection with Count Tegrimo Bevisangue, who, with his wife Gisla, founded the abbey of Strumi in close proximity to the stronghold. The Guidi were of Langobard descent. They were one of the noble families who had come into Italy as part of a barbarian invasion, and who, in the course of time, came to rank among the great feudatories of the Empire. A legendary colouring is given to the opening chapter of their history, but its essentials are corroborated by contemporary references. Count Tegrimo is the first member of the family who figures in the annals of the Casentino. At the time he was the sole surviving member of the family. His father, Count Guido, married Engelrada, the daughter of Duke Martino of Ravenna. This gave him a place of authority at Ravenna. But a dispute arose between him and the archbishop; he caused the archbishop to be imprisoned. There was a popular rising, and Count Guido and all his family were put to death--all excepting Tegrimo, who was saved by his nurse. The name Bevisangue afterwards attached to him either because of the revenge he took on his father’s murderers, or else because he had contracted a habit of licking his sword after he had spilt blood. At the time when Tegrimo founded Strumi--the original site of which is said to be marked by a church which is seen from Poppi lying in the midst of dark cypresses--the family already owned strongholds near Pistoja and Florence and the stronghold of Modigliana above Faenza, which is identical with the Castrum Mutilum mentioned by Livy. One by one the strongholds with which the counts fortified their possessions, or which they snatched from their neighbours, appear in the annals of the family. Tegrimo’s son Guido dated a charter from Porciano, which is situated at the uppermost end of the Casentino, a proof that here also a stronghold on a commanding site was in their possession. Historians of a later date--Malespini and Villani, the contemporary of Dante--state that the ancestor of the Guidi came into Italy with the Saxon Emperor Otto I. and from him received the castle of Modigliana. Also that Otto IV. on his passage through Florence saw Gualdrada, the daughter of the rich citizen Berti, and that his follower, one of the Guidi, married her and received the Casentino in dower. As the Guidi owned Modigliana before Otto I. came to Italy, and held extensive property in the Casentino long before the days of Gualdrada, these stories in themselves are untrue, but a true estimation of facts underlies them. The Saxon emperors, in order to strengthen their authority over the greater barons of Italy, favoured the lesser, and among them they favoured the Guidi. The Count Guido who married Gualdrada was on good terms both with Florence and Otto IV.