La Villa di Fontarronco is located in the heart of Tuscany. In 1608, the first of many structures were built. It belonged to the Medici family until 1651 when the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, granted it to the S. Stefano Knight’s Order for maintaining, along with other farms, the marine military of the Grand Duke.

The Order of Saint Stephen (Official: Sacro Militare Ordine di Santo Stefano Papa e Martire , “Holy Military Order of St. Stephen Pope and Martyr”) is a Roman Catholic Tuscan dynastic military order founded in 1561. The order was created by  Cosimo I de’ Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany. The last member of the Medici dynasty to be a leader of the order was Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The order was permanently abolished in 1859 by the annexation of Tuscany to the Kingdom of Sardinia. The former Kingdom of Italy and the current Italian Republic also did not recognize the order as a legal entity but tolerates it as a private body.

The objective of the order was to fight the Ottoman Turks and the pirates that sailed Mediterranean Sea in the 16th century.The Turks and the pirates were making dangerous inroads on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea where Cosimo had recently inaugurated the new port of Livorno. Cosimo also needed a symbolic fight to unite the nobility of the different cities that combined to form his new Grand Duchy (including Florence and Siena), and to demonstrate his support of the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, the creation of a Tuscan military order would also strengthen the prestige, both internal and international, of Cosimo’s new state.

Until 1802, the Pozzo Estate also depended on the general management of Font’a Ronco. Then Pozzo was deemed a separate estate and assigned part of the Font’a Ronco territory. In 1808, the Font’a Ronco estate had about 650 organized hectares and 24-48 small holdings. The heart of the estate consisted of a main villa and a number of small holdings and annex buildings. In 1864, with the annexation of the grand Duke of Tuscany, the farm was transferred to the State Properties and place in auction. Since then, it has belonged to the family originating with the Baroness Fiorella Favard de Bacheville, widow to Anselmo Favard de l’Anglade.