The road map leaves no doubts. Ponte agli Stolli is outside the sacred confines of the Chianti Classico and should therefore be excluded from our journey. But how can we give up the joy of breaking a rule only to go back and make it our own? What l mean is, to break a rule for more lofty ends. Well then, if we go beyond the boundaries for a few hundred meters to reach this destination, we do not feel we are offending anybody. On the contrary, we are doing them a favor by giving information and, above all, contributing to the pleasure of discovery. Hidden by a thick row of trees and shrubs a small and gushing waterfall flows into a lake. Above it is a little bridge which is not particularly striking but is almost two thousand years old, a Roman bridge renamed Ponte agli Stolli. It is one of the numerous testimonies of the vast road network of the Roman Chianti.
From a noteworthy study published by the Centro Studi Chiantigiani “Clante” we are informed that a large Roman road of late imperial times passed through these areas, that is, the upper Arno valley. The road was commissioned by Emperor Hadrian, remembered in history as a tolerant ruler, capable of re-establishing an empire which revealed the first evident signs of decline. This very able leader adopted the new, modern road to replace the old, dilapidated consular one, the Cassia, already recorded at the time as irreparably lost, vetustate collapsum, that is closed to traffic due to excessive wear and tear. He did this to improve the links between Rome and Florence which had become the richest most powerful city of Tuscia.
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See Also:

Etruscans: The Origins, Florentine Castles, Echoes of the Benedictines

or go back to The Origins of Chianti: The Journey Begins