It is only recently that Casciana has been described as "alta" (upper) in order to distinguish it from Casciana Terme (which originally was called Bagni a Acqua).
It is home to ruins of fortresses, 18th and 19th century buildings, a municipal theatre and the parish church of San Niccola (Saint Nicholas).
On the main town road, number 16, stands the house where Eusebio Valli was born (1755) and lived, the first scholar to study a vaccine, or "serum therapy", to cure rabies (he died of yellow fever in Havana in 1816, where he was studying the disease).