Presumably (similar to Cesi) from caedo “to cut”, Ceselli is a hill castle dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries on the right-hand bank of the river Nera. An older settlement stood further uphill where the remains can be seen of some walls and a church. 

The layout of the settlement had a central ramp, crossed mainly by cul-de-sacs lined with houses. The village was built lower down outside the entrance gate to the castle and now its typical hillside houses, with entrances on different levels and from different sides for the cowshed and for the home, stretch along the main road.

Its status as municipality of Scheggino reveals the importance of this town in modern times. The same thing happened in the same year when the municipalities of Castel S. Felice merged with S. Anatolia and Montesanto with Sellano. The municipality of Meggiano, on the other hand, was merged with the municipality of the Nera Valley only in 1881. These events help explain certain deep rooted forms of exaggerated attachment to the traditions of these towns.