Hamlet close to the river Merse. The similarity of its name with the name Brenno, belonged to the leader of the Gauls that, in 390 BC sacked Rome, has made fabulous tale of a Celtic origin of the village; more realistic, however, is the hypothesis that the name derives from the Etruscan Prenthurei. Brenta is first mentioned in 969, in a diploma of Emperor Ottone I, who, at that time, was staying there; diploma that concludes: '…made in Tuscany, in the village of Brenta, on the river Merse, near the city called Siena.' A papal note of 1194 attests that the church of the hamlet, dedicated to S. Michele Arcangelo, belonged to the abbey of San Lorenzo al Lanzo, controlled by the powerful family Ardengheschi. In the early thirteenth century, when the city of Siena won over the Ardengheschi family, Brenna became part of the territory of Siena. During the succeeding decades its importance is linked to the mills that were built by the City of Siena and the nearby Abbey of Torri.