The first historical sources record the existence of the main nucleus and of the stables in the Leopoldian cadastre of 1765. The date of 1711 is shown in a stone in the facade but analyzing the overlapping of the base of the house we see more massive and certainly earlier parts of the wall . Some finds of statuettes and bronze coins with the effigy of Janus Bifronte occurred in past years, however, may assume an even older origin of the site, and perhaps the presence of some type of cult related to the latter, also suggested by the toponym of the underlying municipality which is Subbiano, perhaps deriving from “sub Ianus” or under (the temple) of Janus … Suggestive but perhaps wild assumptions… The presence of many springs in the area, with traces of very ancient pipes, along with the knowledge that from the Roman period onwards the communication routes had all traveled at high altitude and the possibility of finding water at any time of the year, certainly suggest that the place may have had a strong attraction for the ancient travelers who from the Etruscan period onwards crossed the Casentino
The name of the house derives from the presence of the “burraia” next to the buildings, a room that you can visit next to the spring, under the plane trees called “butter trees” and recorded in the Tuscan register of historic trees (estimated age 300 years) . The underground room was built to house a still active spring that maintains its temperature around 7 degrees: for this reason it was used to store the butter resulting from the processing of the milk of the cattle that has been bred in the Alpe di Catenaia since 1700.