Dante's footprint cannot be cancelled - LUNIGIANA DANTESCA - English Digital Version
LUNIGIANA DANTESCA
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Il Resort
Circondato da prati dolcemente degradanti verso il fiume, il Resort Cà del Moro è un angolo di vera pace immerso nella campagna. Posizionato a margine del campo da golf, circondato da uno splendido parco con ulivi, cipressi e castagni secolari, l’albergo dispone di 26 camere, ristorante, bar, piscina e centro wellness.
Il Centro Benessere del Cà del Moro Resort, è stato progettato per essere un tutt’uno armonico con il paesaggio che circonda l’hotel , lungo tutto il percorso ci accompagnano gli stessi elementi naturali che ritroviamo intorno a noi nelle passeggiate sul lungofiume.
Il Centro Benessere
Campo da Golf
NEL SEGNO DI DANTE
Gentili lettori e lettrici,
le edizioni della nostra rivista Italia per Voi ripartono quest’anno con un progetto editoriale che unisce alla consueta promozione del territorio, e dei brand e servizi in esso presenti, il suo lato identitario storico-culturale cogliendo in pieno l’occasione fornita dalle celebrazioni dovute al “Sommo” Dante Alighieri, la cui visione lungimirante contestualizzava un settore territoriale con un’unica radice etnico-sociale divisa solo, attualmente, da regole geografiche amministrative imposte.
Il progetto di Italia per Voi s.r.l. vuol mettere, in questo caso, i suggerimenti dei brand della produzione tipica e dei servizi all’accoglienza turistica territoriale al servizio della cultura identitaria dello stesso territorio, per produrre un risultato finale di comunicazione a 360 gradi che, oltre alla guida cartacea diffusa capillarmente e professionalmente, unirà la versione digitale, sia in lingua italiana che inglese, direttamente sul nostro portale web www.italiapervoimagazine.it dove troverete le schede identificative di tutti i brand partecipanti, i blog connessi all’opera, le mappe del territorio e gli accessi ai nostri accounts social che divulgheranno tutto il progetto secondo le più moderne tecniche utilizzabili su questi canali. Doveroso il ringraziamento, con parti uguali di orgoglio e stima, a tutti gli aderenti ed agli enti che hanno permesso l’edizione ritrovando la forza di ripartire dopo quanto successo nell’ultimo biennio nella nostra nazione, a Mirco Manuguerra la cui conoscenza ed amicizia ci onora da quasi mezzo secolo, e, non ultimo, a tutto il nostro team che ha svolto il suo lavoro al meglio delle possibilità concesse dalle restrizioni sanitarie del momento, con la solita umiltà e professionalità che si richiede a chi vive nel mondo dell’impresa privata.
Buona lettura a tutti.
Gino Giorgetti Direttore Editoriale
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CON “ITALIA PER VOI”
La Lunigiana, terra di confine con una sua indiscutibile dignità storica e culturale, ha avuto un ruolo importantissimo nella vicenda umana e letteraria di Dante. C’è una leggenda che addirittura fa risalire a un’ intercessione di Moroello Malaspina del nobile casato lunigianese, nei confronti del Sommo Poeta, affinchè proseguisse la stesura della Commedia, ferma al canto VII dell’Inferno. Nelle città e nei borghi della Lunigiana, che qui trovate raccontati uno ad uno con grande precisione storica, l’ombra di Dante si aggira: la sua orma non si è cancellata, nei secoli. Sono settecento, quest’anno, gli anni dalla morte del grande Poeta e tutta Italia ne commemora la vita e le opere. Anche il Centro lunigianese di Studi danteschi, con sede a Mulazzo, fondato e presieduto da Mirco Manuguerra, vuole rendere omaggio a un uomo tuttora simbolo dell’Italia nel Mondo e alla terra che lo ospitò, esule, nel 1306. Lo fa in collaborazione con la casa editrice Italia per Voi s.r.l., punto di riferimento turistico-culturale del settore nazionale e, in particolar modo, per la Liguria e la Toscana.
In questo numero della rivista, trovate i luoghi lunigianesi, dove Dante ha soggiornato o di cui ha parlato nella sua opera. Facciamo riferimento, qui, alla Lunigiana in senso lato: molti studiosi sostengono l’esistenza di una regione storico-geografica lunigianese, che avrebbe come capoluogo ideale La Spezia. Tale regione comprende la Val di Magra, il Golfo dei Poeti, le Cinque Terre, la Val di Vara e l’Apuania: praticamente le due province della Spezia e di Massa. La Spezia, anche se non ha avuto “l’orma di Dante“, tuttavia è a pieno titolo in questa guida, perchè è la città dove sono conservati gli atti della Pace di Castelnuovo tra i Malaspina, marchesi di Villafranca e Antonio Nuovolone da Camilla, vescovoconte di Luni: pace siglata grazie alla mediazione diplomatica di Dante, allora in esilio in terra lunigianese. Tutta la poetica dantesca, in qualche modo, è l’esaltazione dell’esilio, come rifugio dell’anima che cerca la Pace: la Lunigiana, per Dante, è il luogo dove la sua natura inquieta ha trovato un riposo attivo, un rifugio dalle beghe politiche della natia Firenze.
L’esilio, o più semplicemente il viaggio, si trasforma in capacità di andare oltre, di accogliere, metabolizzare e poi restituire. Dante l’ha fatto in maniera suprema, tanto da rappresentare tuttora l’Italia nel Mondo. Poeta la cui attualità anche stilistica viene oggi rivalutata, ha tramandato modi di dire che ancora sono in uso: valga per tutti il “Bel Paese“ per indicare l’Italia e “tra Lerici e Turbia“ per circoscrivere il territorio ligure. Che la Lunigiana sia Liguria o che la Liguria includa la Lunigiana, infine, poco importa: parliamo di territori ricchi di storia e di bellezze naturali che la rivista “Italia per Voi“ cerca sempre di valorizzare e promuovere. Ricominciare dall’Italia è un segnale di fiducia nel nostro Paese e in noi stessi. Ascoltare la voce e la testimonianza del grande Poeta, ripercorrere i luoghi della sua orma, accogliere alcune proposte di viaggio di questa guida, è l’invito che vi facciamo.
Gabriella Mignani Direttore Responsabile
ITALIA PER VOI - ANNO IX
Nr. 52 - Marzo-Aprile 2021
Magazine sul turismo culturale nei territori e nei borghi d’Italia THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LUNIGIANA FOOTSTEPS
Aut. Trib. SP nr. 1740/19
Iscrizione al ROC: N° 22857
Direttore Responsabile
Gabriella Mignani
Testi di Mirco Manuguerra
Progetto Editoriale
ITALIA PER VOI s.r.l.
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Altri contributi fotografici
Italia Per Voi s.r.l., Marco Lucchi, Sara Mulliri, Alice Borghini, Walter Bilotta, Enrico Amici, Le Cinque Erbe di Daniela Vettori, Comune di La Spezia, CLSD, Archivio di Stato della Spezia, Dante Pierini, Ca del Moro, Ruschi & Noceti, Coop Casearia Val di Vara, I Sapori del Borgo
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THE PLACES OF HOSPITALITY
Mulazzo
Villafranca in Lunigiana
Giovagallo (Tresana)
Magra e Val di Magra
Fivizzano
Fosdinovo
Ponzanello
Luni
Bocca di Magra (Ameglia)
Lerici
La Spezia
Cinque Terre
Massa, Carrara e le Alpi Apuane
THE TABLE WITH DANTE
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Nonostante l’accurata verifica delle informazioni contenute in questo numero, Italia per Voi s.r.l. non può accettare responsabilità per errori od omissioni. Le opinioni espresse dai contributori non sono necessariamente quelle di Italia per Voi s.r.l. Salvo diversa indicazione il copyright del contributo individuale è quello dei contributori. E’ stato fatto ogni sforzo per rintracciare i titolari di copyright delle immagini, laddove non scattate dai nostro fotografi. Ci scusiamo in anticipo per eventuali omissioni e saremo lieti di inserire l’eventuale specifica in ogni pubblicazione successiva. Abbonamento postale su richiesta.
PATRONAGE
(by the Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi president’s)
Comitato Ufficiale per le Celebrazioni Lunigianesi del 700° anniversario della morte di Dante «Lunigiana Dantesca 2021»
Hanno aderito al Comitato «Lunigiana Dantesca 2021» i seguenti Comuni:
● Bagnone;
● Castelnuovo di Magra;
● Filattiera;
● Fosdinovo;
● Lerici;
● Licciana Nardi;
● Maissana;
● Monterosso al Mare;
● Mulazzo;
● Pontremoli;
● Sarzana;
● Tresana;
● Villafranca in Lunigiana.
Club Lunigiana Pontremoli
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LUNIGIANA FOOTSTEPS
In a 1906 epigraphy in Sarzana on the occasion of the celebration of the 6th centerary of Dante’s first stay in Lunigiana, a beautiful line probably by Giovanni Pascoli, says “Orma di Dante non si cancella” (Dante’s foot print cannot be cancelled).
For this reason we wish to take you on a journey through the places in Liguria where Dante stayed, as unforgettable steps in the National panorama of cultural tourism, because the references to Dante in this area are certainly among the most important. The material we have in hands is so vast and important that it deserves a place of its own, and since 2002 the CLSD has adopted the term Dantistica Lunigianese . Lunigiana is the only region Dante always looks at with a kind, even nostalgic thought, and the studies done by the CLSD over twenty years have been ample and accurate. Dante was a diplomat and in Lunigiana elaborated his philosophicsl model of universal peace thanks to the circumstance which brought to the Peace in Castelnuovo.
We know for certain that on 16th October 1306 (Livio Galanti says Dante was in Lunigiana earlier, in April).
Dante reached an agreement with the bishops-count of Luni on behalf of the Malaspina marquisate, the Ghibellines branch of the “Spino Secco”.
The perception of Dante’s “ Pax Dantis ” which is widely developed in “ Monarchia ” (a treatise of his ripe age) is the reason for the gratitude of the poet to the Malaspina family and the highest praise at the end of Canto VIII of the Purgatory Dante says “ your honoured people ” to the ghost of the
young Corrado Malaspina, marquis of Villafranca in Lunigiana “ by a bad head, she only walks arigh t”. In Dante’s language, in the lexicon of the Divine Comedy to hear that one is proceeding along the enlightened path of the “straight way” is the highest possible acknowledgment one can receive. What Dante grants the Malaspina is a true Nobel Prize for Peace ante litteram and Corrado the young is the only one out of the six characters in the Divine Comedy that Dante addresses using the reverent “you”.
The agreement of Castelnuovo Magra, the original documents drawn up by Sir Giovanni di Partente di Stupio, notary in Sarzana, are in the State Archives in La Spezia.
In Dante’s biography this is the only known document written during his exile. This means that apart from Florence where he was born and Ravenna where he died, no other place,
except for Lunigiana, seven centuries after his death can be proud of the “sure foot print” of the poet . The list of the references is impressive: “ the Acts of the Peace treaty in Castelnuovo ” Canto VIII of Purgatory , the letter of Friar Ilario of the Monastery Corvo in Uguccione della Faggiuola , the legend of the first seven canto of the Inferno , t he poetic correspondence between Dante, Cino from Pistoia and Moroello II of Giovagallo , the letter IV from Casentino to Moroello II Malaspina , quotes of places and people in Dante’s works and some interesting matters, the abacination of Pier delle Vigne ( Inferno XIII) in Piazza San Geminiano in Pontremoli, the wedding of Manfredina Ma-
laspina (Moroello II di Giovagallo sister) with the illegitimate son of Count Ugolino ( Inferno XXXIII) in Villafranca, the stay and the probable death of Guido Cavalcanti in Sarzana, the two novella from the Decameron dedicated to Corrado the Young from Villafranca and the Monastery Corvo in Bocca di Magra, and many more stories. The wealth of matters and the interest shown all through the centuries starting from the thirteenth century justofy the tradition of the Studi Danteschi Lunigianesi, which is still followed and alive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Livio GALANTI, Il soggiorno di Dante in Lunigiana, Centro Dantesco della Biblioteca Comunale di Mulazzo, Pontremoli, 1985.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
ON DANTE’S ROADS IN LUNIGIANA
MULAZZO (MS)
Dante’s official residence in Lunigiana
Map of the hamlet
Founded before the year 1000, perched on a steep hill overlooking the upper Valley of the Magra river, we find Mulazzo the result of a dynastic division made in 1221 by Corrado Malaspina ( Purgatory VIII 119) called by Dante the “Old” a member of the ghibelline faction Spino Secco. This territory includes Villafranca and Giovagallo. With a further division made by the children of the Elder in 1266, the feud became a marquisate.
Mulazzo was the political centre of the whole imperial branch and had an institutional capacity, it also had to represent the reference centre for the secular tradition of hospitality for exiled poets. The Malaspina family was among the main European patrons of the troubadour , the wandering provencal poets. This tradition had started in Oramala, in Val di Staffora during the 12th century and followed at the court of Franceschino, the regent of Mulazzo at the time of Dante’s stay. Sennuccio del Bene, exiled and guest in Mulazzo, just like Dante, ended his song with his extraordinary lines: ” after I have lost all hope ”
“and before you call on Lunigiana you will find Marquis Franceschino and in mild latin tell him I trust him much and how remoteness puzzles me”
This men is not mentioned in the Divine Comedy, but the way Dante addressed the grandfather in Pur-
MULAZZO
“Dove la cultura è di casa”
Il museo ‘Casa di Dante in Lunigiana’ e il parco dantesco del borgo storico monumentale
Le Statue-Stele e gli antichi abitatori Liguri-Apuani
Le vestigia e le memorie degli otto castelli medievali
Gli stemmi dei Malaspina e le memorie dei cantori provenzali
Montereggio: Il “Cantamaggio” e l’epopea dei “Librai pontremolesi”
Il navigatore Alessandro Malaspina (1754-1810)
I vini e la cucina tipica lunigianese
gatory VIII, 119 is a celebration of the feud.
They called me Conrad Malaspina; not that old one, but from him I sprang
Together with Olbizzo il Grande, the Old is to be considered as one of the greatest representatives of the Malaspina family up to the time of Dante. He was the son in law of the “ stupor mundi ” Emperor Federico II, as by a reliable tradition he married his illegitimate daughter Costanza. We know he was an ardent ghibelline, a faithful servant of the empire, he fought next to the emperor and saved his life in the defeatr of Vittoria in 1248.
The “Old” who operated the revolutionary division of the feud was probably responsible for the two coat of arms (Spino Secco an Spino Fiorito) which can be attributed to
the works of the founders of the trobadour movement, Guglielmo IX of Aquitania and Jaufre Rudel, through Guilhem de la Tor a ghibelline bard, active between the castles of Oramala in Val di Staffora and the court in Mulazzo around 1221.
Guilhem de la Tor, the author of the Treva (an allegorical follow up of a lost song by Aimeric de Peguilhan) immortalizes Selvaggia and Beatrice, the daughters of the “Old” in a fake quarrel at court. The young ladies are rivals for the palm of virtue queen. Who would have been the “Donna” of the most virtuous Court? The ghibelline “Spino Secco” or the guelf “Spino Fiorito”. The two sisters were obviously the best people for a peace, wanted as natural. The alchemic speculation developed by the trobadour wanted the two opponents (the Pope and the Emperor) to turn into inseparable and complementary elements in the only gold medal that
is the Good Ruling of the World. So the “Treva” , that is the truce enacted by the art of the bard, a young Virgilio, was the unaware prophecy of a renewed Lieta Novella, the Pax Dantis . In fact in the Purgatory VIII what Dante does is to replace the young ladies with two splendid “ astor celestiali ” guarding the noble Valletta, so bright in their faces to foreshadow the fatal “ two Suns ” in Purgatory XVI, who were of course the Pope and the Emperor.
The two Malaspina Coat of Arms, an expression of fundamental knowledge of an equilibrium existing between two opposites, tell us that in the division of the feud there was however the idea of obtaining, through strategies, bothe the Guelf and the Ghibelline positions so as not to sink in the sterile and inauspicious diatribe that was strangling the whole of
Di fronte al cuore del borgo, con terrazza panoramica, in un ambiente raffinato ed accogliente, a conduzione familiare, potrete gustare un ricco menù di piatti della cucina spagnola e della cucina tradizionale lunigianese. Carta dei vini con etichette della Lunigiana e di tutta Italia.
Pineta
Europe. The scope was to increase the global value of the family. In this way the Malaspina have repaired the dignity they deserve in history, they are no longer considered rough landlords like poultry thieves by a crowd of lecturing old fogeys or similar candidates. but authentic enlightened rulers fully worthy of Dante’s absolute praise.
As capital of the Spino Secco Mulazzo is to be considered the main reference of Dante’s hospitality in Lunigiana . We shall therefore speak of Mulazzo as the Official Residence of Dante, whereas Villafranca and Giovagallo were just domiciles. Following these lines we can that it is true that Moroello II di Giovagallo was responsible for the visit of the great Poet in Val di Magra (Moroello was mentioned twice in the Divine Comedy, and also his wife Alagia Fieschi) but Franceschino must be recognised the role of greatest host of Dante. We know Franceschino was at the core of the whole inner organization of the Spino Secco. In 1296 he was the promoter of an agreemen where we can easily foresee the intention of extending the whole Coat of Arms the principle of the safeguard of the family heritage imposed by will by Corrado the Young from Villafranca (Dante imagines him as a representant sinner in the Antipurgatorio).
On 6th October 1306 he himself gave Dante the power of attorney also for the cousins in Villafranca (where the heirs of the feud were a little more than boys) so that a resolution of the secular controversy with the bishop-counts of Luni could be reached. On that occasion, on his initiative, Dante was engaged to get to the ratification of the agreement with the marquis of Giovagallo. In 1307 though still tied to the Ghibelline cause, his old enemy Antonio Nuvolone da Camilla appointed Franceschino his own trustee. In the Monumental Historic Hamlet several items are of great interest and make a unique Dantesque ground.
First of all the polygonal base of the Obertenghi tower, Dante’s Tower old popular traditions and memories, part of the so called Zona Dantesca (Dante’s zone) wanted by Livio Galanti, great scholar and unforgettable major of the hamlet at the time of the celebrations in 1965. Underneath the tower a fake tradition, even if present in a 19th century notorial deed, quoted as “Dante’s house”
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Accoglienti camere; Ristorante “Da Giovanni”, con ricchi menu di piatti lunigianesi; Piscina con comforts; Parco attrezzato; Parco giochi bimbi; Campo da tennis con illuminazione notturna
Via Cravilla 50 - Mulazzo (MS) Tel: +39 0187.850220
an unlikely rural construction. Moreover against the beautiful buttresses and the Apenines stands the statue of Dante , the last work of Arturo Dazzi from Carrara (1966). It was commissioned by Livio Galanti for the seventh centenary of Dante’s birth. The monument represents the very original idealization of a “mother Dante”, as Dante is represented in the act of holding on his lap the book of the Comedy like his own creature. Further down in the village there is “ Casa di Dante ” in Lunigiana a multifunctional centre of the Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, houses in a tower-house with foundations dating back to the 13th century, a beautiful three mullioned window, and a ceiling with huge chestnut beams.
On the west side of the outer walls there is the Epigraph of the Centenary in memory of Dante’s Year in 2006, dedicated to Livio Galanti and in praise of Canto VIII of the Purgatory .
A well preserved sepulchral epigraphy dated 1338, initally attributed to a son of Cino da Pistoia is a hypothesis without any foundation. Actually a meeting between Dante and his devoted poet
Inf I
friend is to be considered as certain. Cino was a close friend of Moroello II di Giovagallo, captain of the people in Pistoia early in 1306, and he must definetly be thought of as the best advisor in the stay of Dante in Lunigiana.
Since 2020 the whole journey is marked as ”Via Dantis ” this itinerary is similar to the Via Crucis , through nine stations for eight main Cantos, crosses the poem of Christianity from the “ dark wood ” to the “ visio Dei ”, a true Odyssey at the end of the Divine Comedy which is a unicum in secular history of lectura dantis .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pietro FERRARI, Morì a Mulazzo il figlio di Cino da Pistoia?, Parma, La Giovane Montagna, 1940.
Livio GALANTI, Il soggiorno di Dante in Lunigiana, Centro Dantesco della Biblioteca Comunale di Mulazzo, Pontremoli, 1985.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, La Sapienza dei Malaspina, su «Quaderni Obertenghi», 2015, n. 4, pp. 49-59; La Sapienza ermetica dei Malaspina: ulteriori considerazioni, su «Studi Lunigianesi», XLIV-XLV, 2016, pp. 57-69.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Via Dantis, libro (2008) e film in DVD (2009), Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi.
VILLAFRANCA IN LUNIGIANA (MS)
Corrado the Young and the highest commendation to the Malaspina
Following the division of the Malaspina family by Corrado Malaspina the Old in 1221 also Villafranca, together with Mulazzo and Giovagallo was part of the Ghibelline line of the Spino Secco. The land became a marquisate after a later division operated by the children of the Old in 1266.
The castle of Malnido, a distinctive structure on a rock where Bagnone
and Magra rivers meet was almost integral up to the time of the bombing of WWII. There are now only sad ruins and we hope we shall be able to restore, at least partly.
Villafranca like Pontremoli and Sarzana developed along the Via Francigena (already mentioned in Sigerico’s itinerary date 990) as crossed in a straight line.
In 1294 Corrado II the Young to di-
Map of the hamlet
stinguish him from the the Old , as Dante wrote, died prematurely and his children did not posess a full political ability, so true that Franceschino from Mulazzo signed also for them the power of attorney for the agreement (Peace of Castelnuovo) on 6th October 1306.
Canto VIII of the Purgatory , geared on the figure of the marquis of Villafranca, is defined by Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi as the Canto Lunigianese by excellence. The famous conversation between Dante and Corrado in the Antipurgatory ended with a superb praise on behalf of the poet to the whole Ghibelline branch of the Malaspina. Also Boccaccio was fascinated by the stories of the court in Villafranca and as a great seeker of memories for his Trattatello in laude di Dante (treatise in praise of Dante) he wanted to honour Corrado the Young by placing him and his daughter Spina as protagonists in one of the longest stories of his Decamerone .
We know that Corrado freed Sarzana twice from the attempt of dominion by Pisa but there are no documents to confirm this. During two campaigns he met Nino Visconti, enemy in life and expiation fellow in the Purgatory. A recent study seems to assume a likely relationship between the marquis of Villafranca and Nino Visconti through Nino’s daughter Giovanna (recalled by her father in Purgatory VIII, 70-72). It is said she should have got married to Corradino di Villafranca mentioned in the Act of Peace of Castelnuovo. Corrado was at fist in the fight against the bishop-count of Luni, but later we find him in the attempt to reach a lasting peace.
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On 8th May 1281 in Orvieto an arbitration award freed him from an excommunication for the return to the curia of the territories usurped by the wicked Enrico da Fucecchio.
The remains of Corrado are probably in the crypt of the small Malaspina church of San Nicolò in Malnido (Villafranca) recently uncovered in an archeological excavation.
In 1285 Moroello II sister - vapour of Val di Magra married by proxy the son of the count of Donoratico, a sad protagonist in Inferno XXXIII.
The event, supported by a historical document, testifies the important ties of the Malaspina with the powerful Gherardesca family. The sacred site of Malnido has
now a park called Parco Didattico Dantesco, with a valuable monument to Dante Alighieri.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ubaldo MAZZINI, Il matrimonio di Manfredina Malaspina di Giovagallo con un figlio del conte Ugolino (con una postilla dantesca), in “Giornale Storico della Lunigiana”, anno VII, fasc. II, La Spezia, 1915, pp. 129-136.
Claudio PALANDRANI, Dante, i Malaspina e la Lunigiana, Massa, Apua Service, 2005.
Germano CAVALLI, La fama letteraria dei Marchesi Malaspina di Villafranca nel ‘300, in “Archivio Storico per le Provincie Parmensi”, IV serie, vol. XLVII (1995), Parma, Deput. St. Patria Prov. Parm., 1996, pp. 41-52.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
Convivium Venti Venti un locale semplice ma allo stesso tempo inusuale. Una cucina influenzata dalle tradizioni culinarie locali, fino a fondersi con gli ingredienti della dispensa contemporanea. Il locale occupa gli spazi di una vecchia osteria, ristrutturata con un mix&match di arredi classici e moderni, definendo così l’estetica di un locale raffinato.
In Giovagallo with the “worthy Alagia” and “the steam of Val di Magra”
Map of the hamlet
In 1221 following the famous division made by Corrado Malaspina mentioned by Dante in Purgatorio VIII, 119 the hamlet of Giovagallo with Mulazzo and Villafranca belonged to that Malaspina bran -
ch of Ghibelline and so imperial origin called “Spino Secco”.
In 1266 for a later division made by the children of the “ Antico ” the domain became a marquisate and strangely sided with the Guelfi cause (on the Nera side) together with that Moroello II who was the great host of Dante easily traced in all the main references of Dante in Lunigiana. What remains of that stormy kingdom is the
tower and the ancient walls, sleeping in a sacred peace, at the top of a very steep hill. The road has almost disappeared and the site is enveloped by a thick chestnut wood. In a place where certainly lived the “ vapour of Val di Magra ”, Inferno XXIV, 145 and his wife Alagia Fieschi (worthy in herself Purgatory XIX 142-144), the crumbling of those memories is the true cry of silence. Giovagallo was not a small military garrison of Monte Cornoviglio as many wrongly believe because of the references.
In Purgatory VIII, 121 Dante says: ” in your dominions ” where
Grazie ad un mix equilibrato d’inno vazione tecnologica, creatività ed espe rienza, mantenendo inalterata la tradi zione, dal 1954 produciamo salumi freschi e stagionati lunigianesi e commerciamo carni italiane all’ingrosso e al dettaglio.
per: Duca di Tresana e Salamino al miele Dop della Lunigiana
Struttura inserita nel cuore del piccolo e tranquillo borgo della Quercia, la cui posizione strategica permette di vivere le molteplici attrattive culturali e naturali della Lunigiana, le suggestive città d’arte limitrofe o le vicine località Patrimonio
UNESCO delle Cinque Terre.
L’intera casa, disposta su due livelli, è situata nella piazzetta del paese, dove è possibile parcheggiare; recentemente riqualificata è dotata di ogni comfort e di wi-fi gratuito.
Via Aldo Buttini, 15 - Loc. Quercia
Tel. 1 +39
the use of the plural is referred to the exclusive dominion of the Spino Secco and to his visit in Lunigiana, including all the feuds.
Studies are being undertaken to trace the real urban dimension of Giovagallo in the 13th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Raniero PORRINI, Appunti per la storia di Giovagallo, Genova, Scuola Tip. Sordomuti, 1937.
Livio GALANTI, Il soggiorno di Dante in Lunigiana, Centro Dantesco della Biblioteca Comunale di Mulazzo, Pontremoli, 1985.
Giulivo RICCI, Il castello di Giovagallo, in «Cronaca e Storia di Val di Magra», 1995.
Nicola GALLO, Alcune considerazioni sulla struttura del castello di Giovagallo, Tipolitografia Mori, Aulla, 1999.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
Nel cuore delle
Lunigiana un albergo di 14 camere più ristorante con ampio salone interno e giardino con piscina.
Lo chef propone una cucina tradizionale rivisitata del territorio e carne alla brace cotta nel forno a legna.
Via Roma, 223 Barbarasco di Tresana (MS)
Tel. +39 0187.477464
Mob. +39 335.5605081 ristorante.mauro@libero.it
CASTELNUOVO DI MAGRA (SP)
The castle of the “Peace of Dante”
of the hamlet
The magnificent structure of the episcopal castle ordained by the warrior bishop Enrico da Fucecchio was the meeting place of the historical agreement between Dante and the last of the count-bishops Antonio Nuvolone da Camilla.
Enrico was the great reformer of the diocesan organization and also a consigner of the very famous Co-
dice Pelavicino kept in the library of Seminario Vescovile in Sarzana. The meeting took place in the morning of the 6th October 1306 in front of witnesses and Sir Giovanni di Parente di Stupio , a notary who a few hours earlier in Sarzana had drawn up a general power of attorney for Dante on behalf of Franceschino Malaspina, marquis of Mulazzo.
It was not just a formality but a long, laborious and diplomatic mediation which finally brought to a lon-
Map
ged-for completion.
The good resolution of the agreement was also due to the relationship of the bishops with the Fieschi family, on his mother’s side because Moroello Malaspina from Giovagallo was married to Alagia Fieschi, first cousin of Antonio Nuvolone. The total absence of the Malaspina in the episcopal seat, following the execution of the three ambassadors ordered by bishop Enrico da Fucecchio, leaves no doubt as to the tactfulness of the diplomatic mission.
The fulfilment of the treaty at the official residence of the bishops-count of Luni, fully justifies the definition of “Peace of Castelnuovo”. We can also speak however of the “Peace of Dante” , instead it is wrong to state “Peace of Sarzana” or “Peace of Calcandola” (Calcandola is the name of an ancient square in Sarzana, where the deed was signed).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Livio GALANTI, Il soggiorno di Dante in Lunigiana, Centro Dantesco della Biblioteca Comunale di Mulazzo, Pontremoli, 1985.
Claudio PALANDRANI, Dante, i Malaspina e la Lunigiana, Massa, Apua Service, 2005.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
Punto di riferimento grazie alla qualità delle materie prime e alla produzione di prodotti tipici regionali. Non solo pane e focaccia, ma anche i “panigazi”, la “Kizoa”, ovvero una focaccia con salsiccia pilastro della storia locale e i dolci della tradizione, come la focaccia dolce con uvetta, noci e mandorle e i biscotti della “Nonna Pina”.
SARZANA (SP)
Piazza della Calcandola:
“Dante’s footprint cannot be cancelled”
Sarzana was mentioned in 990 in Sigerico’s itinerary and developed along the Via Francigena, the pilgrim route which still crosses the medioeval layout in a straight line from Porta Parma to Porta Romana. Not many people know that from Porta Parma starts the state road called Cisa, that goes along via Francigena and heads towards Verona where it ends at the south door of the large Scalingeri city.
On 6th October 1306, early in the morning in the old Piazza della Calcandola (now Piazza Giacomo Matteotti) at the time “paved with gravel, like the rough bed of the torrent Calcandola which often flooded before the embarkment works pushed it beyond Porta Parma (Corrado Martinetti) Dante received a full power of attorney from Francesco Malaspina, marquis of Mulazzo (in the presence and before Ser Giovanni di Parente di Stupio, notary and witnesses.
Dante was to conclude in the Bishops Palace in Castelnuovo Magra, as guest of the high prelate Antonio Nuvolone da Camilla, the historical
Map of the hamlet
Il vostro punto di riferimento in ogni momento della giornata, dalla colazione, all’aperitivo, al pranzo veloce. Pasticceria con PRODUZIONE PROPRIA tradizionale e torte a tema per eventi speciali.
treaty which would finally decree the peace between the Malaspina Ghibelline faction and the natural Guelphism of the Curia Lunense. In the Atti della Pace di Castelnuovo for Sarzana the “municipality” and the “castle” are transaction items treated separately, it is easy to understand why the bishops decided to move their premises in Castelnuovo Magra. This decision was followed by a prompt answer of the Marquis for the power of attorney to Dante. In fact from the documents it is evident that as the notary wanted to gain time, he was drawing up, together with Dante, the rethorical incipit of the treaty when he suddenly stopped and crossed it out. Then he drew up the power of attorney and only after the text with the exact words which had already been used as a preamble to the instrumentum pacis. The presence of Dante is not limited to the Peace in Castelnuovo. The city was the forced residence in the year
1300 of another great poet of the Florentine Dolce Stil Novo, Guido Cavalcanti who had been exiled also because of Dante, though they were very good friends. Here Cavalcanti probably wrote his last work, the famous “Ballatetta”, before dying of malaria caught in the swamps where the very old town of Luni had sunk.
A brief memory of Guido comes from an epigraphy recently placed at Porta Romana. Dante and Guido together are celebrated with a couple of parallel alleys, flanked by beautiful trees on the opposite sides of the new course given to the river Calcandola in recent times.
The Monumental Historic Centre has great examples of works of art, religious and ancient settings, relics and treasures of the past.
An epigraph by Achille Pellizzari was placed in 1906 on the facade of the Town Hall, where once was Piazza Calcandola, it commemorates the
Cantina dell’Ara
Cantina dell’Ara è amore per il vino
Mio padre lo vendeva “al bicchiere” da Lìdamo, il bar di famiglia ora gestito da mio fratello Beppi. Si dedicava alla vigna ogni giorno a partire dalle cinque del pomeriggio, quando con gli altri operai finiva il turno alla Ceramica Vaccari.
di azienda agricola famigliare. In questo modo posso seguire tutte le fasi, dalla terra alla bottiglia, senza perdere di vista il mio principale obiettivo: realizzare vini semplici e di qualità, nel rispetto della mia terra e delle sue tradizioni.
Ho cominciato a dedicarmi alla sua terra per non perderne la memoria e, anno dopo anno, la passione è cresciuta. Imbottiglio la piccola quantità di vino che produco con amore e mi piace mantenere la dimensione
Via Ara - Loc. Ponzano Santo Stefano di Magra (SP)
The epigraph ends with an immortal line “Orma di Dante non si cancella” (Dante’s footprint cannot be cancelled) attributed to the poet Giovanni Pascoli.
The Code Pallavicino is kept inside the library of the Episcopal Seminary. It is a collection of arts commissioned by the bishop-count Enrico da Fucecchio (protagonist of cruel events during the war which lead to the Peace in Castelnuovo) to census the properties and the rights of the curia in Luni. There is also a beautiful painting by Corrado Mezzana dated 1914 Dante and Friar ilario.
Inside the cathedral the precious painted cross “Croce dipinta” by Maestro Guglielmo (1138), the ampulla of the very precious blood of the Leboinica legend (Bocca di Magra).
One of the most famous scholars in the Tradition of the Studi Danteschi Lunigianesi is Alfredo Schiffini (1895-1971). He is present in the Enciclopedia Dantesca, he was given the writing of the Poesia (poem) that unfortunately phosthumous.
A great scholar like him justifies the request of a better use of the city by dedicating the old square Piazza della Calcandola to the great poet. The expectation of the Rotary Club at the time of the 7th century of Dante’s birth was stressed by Centro Luni-
gianese di Studi Danteschi in 2006. A yearned “Piazza della Procura di Dante” should also be accompanied by an appropriate monument to the poet together with the Procellaria by Carlo Fontana. symbol of victory and also of freedom which Dante pursued all his life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mariano PICEDI BENETTINI, Il soggiorno di Dante in Lunigiana, La Spezia, Conferenza del Rotary Club della Spezia per la celebrazione del VII Centenario della nascita del divino Poeta, 17 dicembre 1964.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
dal 1934 a Sarzana
La Pasticceria Gemmi rispetta la tradizione e conserva i sapori e le fragranze di una volta. Sue specialità sono la Spongata, la Focaccia Sarzanese, il Buccellato, gli Amaretti.
Pan Divina fatto con ingredienti tipici lunigianesi: farina di grano saraceno, farina di castagne, fichi secchi e finocchio selvatico.
“Door to Tuscany” this is what the Longobards called the region of Luni and also Federico II of Svevia. The hamlet of Pontremoli, which developedc along the stretch of the Via Francigena from the Padania to Monte Bardone (nowadays Cisa Pass) had the greatest revelance in medioeval time.
Since 1226 a free municipality of the Stupor Mundi , received the visit of the emperor several times.
In February 1226 on his last visit, coming from Cremona, he dragged along Pier delle Vigne, in chains (the suicide in Inferno XIII, and his faithful counsellor, fallen into disgrace) and “ in platea ecclesie Sancti Geminiani ” had him blinded.
Dante’s lines introducing the tercet of Pier:
Thereat a little stretching forth my hand, from a great wilding gathered I a branch and straight the trunk exclaimed: Why pluck’st thou me? […]
Forth from the broken splinter words and blood; […]
The “pruno” (prunus) the wild plum tree, that is the tree of the two Coat of Arms of the Spino Secco and the Spino Fiorito.
The “word” emerging from the tree into which the tragic character has been turned is therefore the Malaspina memory.
We must not forget that the Old was Federico II’s son in law.
Pontremoli houses the Premio Bancarella , famous all over the world but above all it is the town of the “ Museum of the Stele Statues of Lunigiana ” in the Castle of Piagnaro, a great example of the Megalithic anthropomorphic world.
In Saint Peter’s church there is a beautiful labyrinth of the 11th century. Luigi Poletti was born in Pontremoli, he was a mathematician in prime
Boutique in cui è possibile acquistare sia l’olio extravergine di propria produzione certificato Toscano IGP colline della Lunigiana, sia prodotti cosmetici naturali 100% Made in Tuscany.
Un ambiente che renderà gli acquisti delle vere e proprie esperienze di alta qualità.
numbers who enjoyed translating Inferno XXXIII, Count Ugolino Cantoin the local Pontremolese dialect.
Paride Chistoni was also born in Pontremoli, he was one of the best scholars of the Tradizione di Studi Danteschi Lunigianesi.
In the local cemetery one can see the grave of Alessandro Malaspina, navigator and great scientist from Mulazzo and Paride Chistoni whose epigraph quotes: “Great man of letters and eminent critic, fine poet”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Livio GALANTI, La Lunigiana nella ‘Divina Commedia’ - III - Pier della Vigna, su «Il Corriere Apuano», Pontremoli, 22 marzo 1980.
Livio GALANTI, Il soggiorno di Dante in Lunigiana, Centro Dantesco della Biblioteca Comunale di Mulazzo, Pontremoli, 1985.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
La Gallina Cubista è un negozio di prodotti naturali, biologici e a km0. In questa piccola bottega, che esiste dal 2013 ed è stata recentemente rinnovata da Daniela e Bruno, si può trovare tutto il necessario per uno stile di vita sano e sostenibile dalla testa ai piedi! Prodotti per la cura della persona, make-up e alimentazione sono attentamente selezionati per il benessere della persona e dell’ambiente.
MAGRA E VAL DI MAGRA
The magic border between Liguria and Tuscany
The longest valley of the region to be granted the use of the double capital letters, not always followed is mentioned in Inferno XXIV 145 where Dante idealizes the achievements of Moroello II from Giovagallo, captain of the Nera faction. The valley is rising from its morning mist, typical of a middle season:
Map of the territory
From Val di Magra, drawn by wrathful Mars, a vapour rises, wrapped in turbid mists; ( Inferno XXIV 145-151)
The river which gives the valley its name is instead present in Paradise IX with its geographical reference, that is a historic border between Liguria and Tuscany, in its final journey:
...Macra that divides with passage brief Genoan bounds from Tuscan, ( Paradise IX 89-90)
The Regional Park Monte Marcello Magra Vara covers most of the river bed and it is a real natural oasis, a kingdom for many fishing and faunistic species under protection.
The whole Lunigiana has become a vast, protected oasis and can boast two national parks (The Emiliano - Tuscan park and the Cinque Terre park) besides two regional parks, the Apuan Alps park and that of Portovenere, Tramonti and the Archipelago of the Gulf of La Spezia), there is also a Marine preserve facing the islands and the Cinque Terre.
LA TRIGOLA
L’Albergo Ristorante
La Trigola è circondato da un ampio giardino, dal quale si gode una splendida vista sulla vallata. Punti forti del Ristorante sono la stagionalità e la cucina genuina e rispettosa delle tradizioni, con piatti di pesce e di carne e materie prime a km0. L’Albergo dispone di 14 camere complete di ogni comfort.
A hamlet known for many Dante’s scholars situated on the ancient pass road
Map of the hamlet
On the old road Passo dell’Ospedalaccio Dante may have gone through heading for the lands of Emilia. The Pietra di Bismantova mentioned in Canto IV of the Purgatory.
No references are made in Dante’s work to events, people or things about this area.
Dante might have met Spinetta Malaspina who had a visionary project for a Lunigiana dominion. Fivizzano is a land of Dante scholars and by right a Luogo Dantesco Lunigianese and it competes with La Spezia with four scholars Giovanni Manzini(abt 1362-1421), Giovanni Talentoni (1542-1617), Emanuele Gerini (1777-1836) and Adolfo Bartoli (1833-1894). Fivizzano undoubtedly holds the oldest and continuous tradition in history for studies on Dante.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Loris Jacopo BONINI, Libri & Destini, Pacini Fazzi, Lucca, 2000.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
Una tradizione che si tramanda da padre in figlio dal 1797. Olio di prima spremitura prodotto con olive di uliveti della Lunigiana di antica e pregiata coltivazione, schiacciate con macina a pietra. Un extravergine di qualità che soddisfa i palati più esigenti.
Loc. Casette di Gragnola Fivizzano (MS) Tel. +39 0585 99171
Mob. +39 320 6994290
frantoioriani@gmail.com · frantoioriani.it
I PRODOTTI
FOSDINOVO (MS)
The castle of the tradition
Map of the hamlet
The presence of Dante in Fosdinovo has always been cherished and wanted by poets. Giovanni Fattori (1755-1807) from Fivizzano was always a great supporter of Dante’s stay in the massive castle of the village. Gabriele D’Annunzio believed the view from the top of the Apuan Alps that one can enjoy inspired Dante with some wonderful scenes of Città di Dite.
To some supporting the hospitality received by the poet in the castle others object that the castle belonged to the Malaspina family only after Dante’s death.
The CLSD believes Dante was certainly welcome not only in all the castles of the Spino Secco, because of a needful and diplomatic agreement and also in the most important seats of the episcopal power and the main courts of the Guelfi area (the castles of the
Spino Fiorito). Moreover Dante was a guest of some protectorates in the Luni episcooality and Fosdinovo was among them. In the “Preambolo degli Atti della Pace di Castelnuovo” in Fosdinovo there is a reference to the nobles Puccio and Francino de la Musca. Therefore the issue of the foot steps in Fosdinovo as Galanti wrote: “the presence of Dante is not only possible but historically required”. The tradition of the famous small room set up in the castle close to a fifteen hundred tower is a historical fake brought about by the local supporters after the discovery of the documents of the “Peace of Dante” (1765).
The Affreschi Malaspiniani (Malaspi-
Sotto le mura dell’antico
Castello Malaspina, la trattoria con cucina tipica del territorio utilizza materie prime scelte con cura e vini di produzione propria.
nian frescoes) are highly valuablem they are in grottesque style made by Gaetano Bianchi (1882) from Flo rence and beautifully represent the achievements of old Malaspina commanders and some historical scenes on the presence of Dante in Lunigiana. Among these the “Leggenda dei primi sette canti” of the Inferno (The legend of the first seven cantos of the Inferno) quoted by Boccaccio. The precious papers, found by relatives in Florence, were handed to the poet through Moroello II Malaspina, marquis of Giovagallo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Tutto il sapore del Territorio
Livio GALANTI, Dante e il castello di Fosdinovo in «Quaderni Conoscere - Alla scoperta dei castelli della Lunigiana seguendo le orme di Dante», Cavanna, Carrara, 1984, n. 3.
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Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
The residence of Ponzanello rightly called a small Castel Gandolfo of Lunigiana witnessed the imposition by Emperor Arrigo VII to the bishop-count of Luni Gherardino Malaspina.
On the death of Antonio Nuvolone da Camilla in 1307 in Sarzana there was a schism because of the division among the electors into two factions Bianchi (the White) and Neri (the Black).
The official successor was Gherardino Malaspina, representative of the Neri faction, some members of the Bianchi faction opposed the election of another Malaspina, at the episcopal residence, friar Guglielmo Malaspina mentioned in the
Atti della Pace di Castelnuovo as referent of Dante.
On 9th May 1312 Gherardino finally obtained the confirmation of Pope Clemente V, but on 23rd February of the following year, after refusing as Comites to supply the feudal quotas to Arrigo VII, he was banned from the empire, thus remarking the end of a secular epoch of the bishop-counts of Luni. Since then “a series of bishops-marquis” started, a clear evidence of the growing Malaspina influence towards a diocese.
The extremist attitude of Gherardino attracted Dante’s harsh sneer in the strong “Epistola ai Cardinali” (Ep XI) where he is mentioned as the only “Lunensen ponteficem” (Ep XI 15) man
Map of the hamlet
free from greed and lust...
The evident focus on such accusations makes one believe that Dante had acquired a deep knowledge of this man during one of his various steps in Lunigiana. This probably happened in 1314, the year of the epistle of friar Ilario and Dante’s journey to Paris. The remains of the episcopal castle and the beautiful medioeval hamlet still tell us about these old presences. Among the houses in the old historical hamlet there is a small museum dedicated to sculptor and painter Nazzareno Micheli from Sarzana (1937-2003) worth to visit.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Augusto Cesare AMBROSI, Castelli e fortezze di Lunigiana, S. Lazzaro di Savena, Fotometalgrafica Emiliana, 1989.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
LUNI (SP)
The old charm of the “beautiful civitas nostra lunensis”
Map of the hamlet
The name of the ancient town of Luni appears for the first time in the Divine Comedy in Canto XX Inferno , 47 where Dante mentions as mounts of Luni the great chain of the Apuan Alps, under which the people of Carrara live:
On Luni’s mountains ‘midst the marble white, where delves Carrara’s hind who wons beneath (Inferno XX 47-48)
The ancient town of Luni is mentioned in Canto XVI Paradise, 73:
Mark Luni; Urbisaglia mark; how they are gone, and after them how go Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and ‘twill seem no longer new or strange to thee to hear that families fail, when cities have their end.
What Dante says of our glorious “ splendida civitas lunensis ” is rather sad as even the towns are doomed to end, but the epitaph of the great poet grants that lost town the highest honour.
By Luni we mean the whole district, the historic Lunigiana, with five vast areas: Val di Vara, Cinque Terre, Golfo dei Poeti, Alpi Apuane and Val di Magra. The Roman noble metropolis
was part of of a region from its foundation (177 b.c.) up to 1204 when the local diocese was moved to Sarzana because of the progressive swamping the whole area had suffered. The remains of the amphitheatre (1st century a.d.) may be ideally pictured as being in the centre between the terraces and the lemons of Montale, the marble quarries of Michelangelo and the Stele Statue Museum in Pontremoli. Dante’s view of the remains of the city may have been from the hills of Castelnuovo Magra, because at the time it was too dangerous to go near the swamps, catch malaria amd die as it happened to his great friend, the stilnovo poet Guido Cavalcanti (-Sarzana). A visit must be paid to the whole archeological area and the collections in the Museo Nazionale. Vincenzo da Milano (1902-1968) from Ortonovo is the author of a very good study under the definition “Lunigiana” in the Enciclopedia Dantesca.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vincenzo DA MILANO, Dante e la Lunigiana, Enti provinciali per il Turismo della Spezia e di Massa-Carrara per il VII centenario della nascita del Poeta (1265-1965), Sarzana, Tipografia Canale, 1966.
Giuseppe BENELLI, Lunezia – La regione emiliano-lunense, La Spezia, Luna Editore, 1999.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
AMEGLIA (SP)
Bocca di Magra, from Santa Croce to Friar Ilaro
Map of the hamlet
The Benedectine monastery in Santa Croce del Corvo in Bocca di Magra (12th century) and friar Ilario evoke the most questioned document in the whole biography of Dante. Notwithstanding the evidence of the letter of friar Ilario to Uguccione della Faggiuola written in his own hand by Sir Giovanni Boccaccio in a precious notebook kept inside the library Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence. This document tells that Dante gave to the good friar a copy of the Inferno to be given with dedication, to the Ghibelline captain Uguccione della Faggiuola, whose family was connected with that monastery. The letter joins up with an autographed volume of the first book of the Divine Comedy. The same book also quotes the receivers of the other two books: the Purgatory was assigned by Dante to Moroello II Malaspina, marquis of Giovagallo, who was his host in Lunigiana (”a vapour rises” Inferno XXIV 145), and Para-
diso despite being initially referred to Federico III of Aragona, was given instead to Cangrande della Scala.
Dante’s well famous answer to the friar, asking
downs, fits of enthusiasm and hard failures the letter of Friar Ilario has regained full dignity thanks also to the help of CLSD and the issue can be considered finally over.
The document is dated 1314, the year when Dante sailed from Lerici towards France, following the Italian delegation of cardinals going to the conclave in Carpentras, when he delivered the famous Epistle to the Cardinals. On that occasion he also went to Paris to the Sorbonne to meet the greatest theologians of his time as Boccaccio himself testifies.
The original site of the monastery of Santa Croce (12th century) has many and precious vestige like the ligneous Santa Croce (Holy cross) a work of art among the most important of the Medioeval period in Lunigiana.
The Legend of Leboino is a copy of the Holy Face which miraculously reached the shore of Luni in a vessel together with an ampulla that contained Jesus’ precious blood. The two relics were contended for a long time between the bishops of Luni and Lucca, and finally a draught contest with oxen assigned the Holy Face to Lucca
him what he was looking for was “Peace, peace...” likewise the proof referred to the choice of the poet to write in vulgar rather than in latin: ”useless giving such food to chew to infants”.
After two centuries of ups and
and the precious blood to Sarzana. This copy of the cross has marvellous artistic and theological features of the face of Jesus, the typical Semite characteristics and his hieratic expression which make this scultpure not just a crucifix but a “triumphant Christ”. All this gives the cross an artistic value so distinctive that it makes one think we are in front of the real archetype of the legend.
The big hands of Jesus Christ have also been referred to the line: “but so wide arms Hath goodness infinite, that it receives all who turn to it” Purgatory III 122-123.
The Fabbricotti family, famous marble
magnates and patrons lived here, surrounded by a beautiful 18th century park and memories of great charm. The last member of this family was Carlo Andrea (1864-1935) a talented Lunigiana scholar of Dante. Enrico Silvestri (1920-1986) from the area of Ameglia discovered the Ligurian Apuan necropolis of Bocca di Magra, and was among the first post-war scholars in favour of the “Epistle of friar Ilario”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Giorgio PADOAN, Il progetto di poema paradisiaco: Vita Nuova, XLII (e l’Epistola di frate Ilaro), in Id., Il lungo cammino del ‘Poema Sacro’ - Studi danteschi, Firenze, Olschki, 1993, pp. 5-23;
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Dante e Santa Croce, Atti del Convegno ‘Il Monastero di Santa Croce: una presenza antica ma sempre nuova’ (Monastero del Corvo, 15 settembre 2001), su «Lunigiana Dantesca», II/2004, n. 17, pp. 4-7; Lunigiana Dantesca, La Spezia, Edizioni del CLSD, pp. 115-21;
Emilio PASQUINI, Vita di Dante, Milano, BUR, 2006, pp. 18-22.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Sul viaggio di Dante a Parigi, su «Atrium», XIX/3 (2017), pp. 134158.
LERICI (SP)
“From Lerici
to
Turbia” and then up to Paris
Map of the territory
The town of Lerici is mentioned as well as the French la Turbie in the Purgatory III, 49-51
“The most remote, most wild untrodden path, in all the tract Twixt Lerice and Turbia, were to this A ladder easy and open of access”
(Purgatory III 49-51)
Dante measures the gradient of the steep ascent of the Purgatory with the projection of some stretches of the Ligurian coast. This reminds us of the Regional Park in Tramonti, between Portovenere and the Cinque Terre, here we find the ravine of Muzzerone. The journey from Lerici to La Turbie, famous place on the Cote d’Azur, has been recognized as the autobiographical trip to Paris mentioned by Boccac-
cio in his “Trattatello in laude di Dante” (small treatise in praise of Dante). It is understandable how the poet wanted to give us precise information on the geography of his long wandering . It has recentlybeen proved that the journey Lerici-La Turbie (imagined as done by road or by sea) retraces the geographical numbering from the Tabula Peutingeriana, where from the Gulf of La Spezia it goes as far as Boron, the mount east of Nizza. It is the long ridge stretch mentioned by Strabone as the very old Via Herculea reaching even Spain.
This means that at the dawn of the 14th century the geographical definition of the Ligurian arch was still the one and intact, unchanged of the old imperial Roman cartography, dating a millenium before.
Also Petrarca with his soft walk on Dante’s footsteps, makes sure he indicates the same directions: ”A Corvo scilicet usque ad Portum herculeo, ut quondam putant, nomine consecratum”.
Lerici is here replaced by the headland of Mount Caprione with its Capo Corvo and instead of La Turbie we find the town of the Principality of Monaco, rightly called “Portum herculeo”.
To sum up what we have just said, we can now state that by Peutingeriana we mean that stretch of the Apenine ridge we now call “Alta via dei Monti Liguri”, a historic naturalistic itinerary starting from Ceparana, the ancient Boaceas of Claudio Tolomeo.
As La Turbie is not a natural harbour, it makes us think that the itinerary suggested by Dante is not by sea, but the descriptions made by
the poet of the overhanging walls along the Ligurian coast imply the knowledge of the territory seen from the sea. We know for sure that during the 14th century there was a boat service along the coast, going from Lerici to the French ports, and it is very likely that Dante left from Lerici towards France following the Italian delegation of cardinals going to the conclave in Carpentras (to whom he gave the famous “Epistle to the cardinals”), and later he went on to Paris, to the Sorbonne mentioned by Boccaccio himself.
The massive keep of the castle (under Pisa and Genoa rule) dates back to Dante’s time. In Bellavista, one of the most wonderful panoramic spots in the whole Gulf of La Spezia, there is an epigraph to re-member the celebratory verses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Sul viaggio di Dante a Parigi, su «Atrium», XIX/3 (2017), pp. 134158.
Via Scoglietti, 18 - Muggiano di Lerici (SP)
Via Fontevivo - La Spezia (SP)
Map of the city
LA SPEZIA (SP)
The town of Dante’s scholars, vestal of the sacred papers
The town of La Spezia is rightly placed among the Luoghi Danteschi Lunigianesi as since the end of WWII is has kept the “ Atti della Pace di Castelnuovo ”.
The precious papers which came from the municipal archives of Sarzana were given to the Notary Archive of the district municipality.
In December 2004 when their custody was given to the Provincial State Archive, under legitimate authority the documents underwent a careful conservative restoration.
On that occasion new special techniques revealed some parts which were thought as lost and yet nothing new came about as compared with the old transcripts.
This is the only document of Dante
Da sempre trattiamo articoli di moda e tendenza e tutto ciò che occorre per uno stile casual o di classe.
Vastissimo assortimento Jeans.
Nel nostro ricco catalogo troverai vestiti di ogni genere, modello, taglia e colore.
related to the time of his exile, and any other region would have been able to make a fortune out of this act but not the area of Lunigiana. It would therefore be desirable that the “ Atti ” came after all out of the dark safe where they are kept
TAGLIE CALIBRATE PER UOMO E DONNA JEANS & SPORTSWEAR
and were permanently exhibited, on bailment, in the most prestigiuos collection of the town. The CLSD has proposed the setting up of a Museo Civico Unificato (Unified Civic Museum) in La Spezia. The art collections in La Spezia are of excellent qua-
Da Carlo e Maurizio troverete tutte le ricette storiche liguri. Il nostro cibo è un viaggio nella storia attraverso le ricette della tradizione ligure dal 1800 ad oggi.
lity, however they are distributed through an excessive number of expositive areas. Only one museum gathering the lunense archeological collections (not to forget the statue stele of Lunigiana) and works of art (not only the Lia Museum and the Camec) would interest and attract tourists besides cultural centres from all over Italy and elsewhere.
Even if La Spezia has no memory of the stay of Dante, it is an area of excellent scholars. From the area of La Spezia we can mention Gaetano Zolese (18191892), Ubaldo Mazzini (18681923), Ettore Cozzani (1884-1971) and Rinaldo Orengo (1895-1980). Their words are not lost.
In un ambiente caldo e familiare il ristorante LA NUOVA SPEZIA offre ai suoi clienti una cucina tradizionale e marinara, seguendo con scrupolo le regole della dieta mediterranea ed usando i prodotti tipici della Liguria.
CINQUE TERRE (SP)
Dante and Vernaccia, alias Sciacchetrà
Map of the territory
When we mention Cinque Terre we immediately think of “Wine”. Dante celebrates wine in the Purgatory XXV 77-78 :
[…]
mark the sun’s heat how that to winw doth change mixed with the moisture filtered through the vine
However the only type of wine mentioned in his works is Vernaccia in the previous canto of the Purgatory XXIV 23-24 :
[…] and that face beyond him pierced unto a learner fineness that the rest had keeping of the church he was of Tours and purges by wan abstinence away Bolsena’s eels and Vernaccia
The Poet refers to Pope Martin IV, who was a particulary greedy man and apparently had the precious eels
Sali a bordo di Alos e lascia a terra i pensieri
Ti porteremo a navigare nel Golfo dei Poeti tra Lerici, Portovenere, le isole, Cinque Terre e Portofino.
Clicca il pulsante e inizia a sognare
CLICCA QUI
of Lake Bolsena prepared in a particular way, the meat once cleaned, was soaked for a long time in that very particular nectar. The criticism attributes the step to the excellent white of the Cinque Terre at the time, in fact, that vine was an exclusive production of the eastern coast of Liguria, later the vine was brought to Tuscany, today we find the famous Vernaccia of San Gimignano.
The chronicler Salimbene de Adam from Parma, who was born in 1221, the year in which Corrado l’Antico divided the Malaspina family into the two dynastic branches Spino Secco (Ghibelline) and Spino Fiorito (Guelph) - paid tribute in his Chronica to the main product of the Cinque Terre with two simple Latin verses: «Et ibi prope vinum de Vernaccia habetur, et vinum terrae illius optimum est» . This is also reported in the Encyclopedia Dantesca (“Vernaccia”), quoting Salimbene we learn that «vinum de
Vernacia [..] nascitur in quadam conrata quae Vernatia appellatur» . There is no doubt that the name of the wine certainly comes from the village of Vernazza. In the famous short story of the Abbot of Cluny (II of the X Day) from the Decameron , Boccaccio quoted the following: Certaldese refreshes the poor prelate, attacked by brigands, with a large glass of «Vernacia from Corniglia ». In the III Novella of the VIII Day Certaldese was surely fascinated by this very precious wine, as he had even imagined it as “a river” in the land of plenty, the “Country of Bengodi”. As we have seen Salimbene enhances the wines of the eastern Ligurian coast, distinguishing “vinum de Vernaccia” from “vinum terrae” , we definitely think that the first one must correspond to the divine Sciacchetrà, while the second one is the classic white of the Cinque Terre. It is not clear how the Abbot of Cluny could have been
relieved by a simple glass of white wine, which is well known in every district of Italy, when rosolio, a real cure-all, ‘a drink that is able to awaken even the dead”, as they the popular tradition states, was guaranteed by the exceptionality of a Passito wine like the typical wine of the Cinque Terre.
It is not a coincidence that centuries later Eugenio Montale stated the following about the wine Sciacchetrà: “it is one hundred percent authentic when drunk on the spot, far exceeds the pharmaceutical Porto wine”. When poets choose their words they don’t do it by chance, it is a fateful feeling, just like the poets of Và Pensiero . Petrarca confirms the identify of Vernaccia/Sciacchetrà, while following Dante’s footsteps along the way from “Lerice to Turbia” (Lerici), that according to him started from Capo Corvo where there is a famous monastery, that is mentioned in the letter of friar Ilario (Bocca di Magra), he clearly demonstrates in the latin verses of Africa that «[…] the vines overlook Monte -
rosso and the hills of Corniglia, celebrate the sweet wine”.
None of the big four writers (Salimbene, Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio) spoke about “Sciacchetrà”, it means that such name is a more recent creation, referred to the period that goes from the 1600s to the mid-1800s, in which the Cinque Terre fell into real were isolated. At that time the only frequenters of the extreme eastern Ligurian coast were the Genoese merchants, that came to stock grapes, wines and certainly also the famous Monterosso anchovies with their boats. In the first half of the XIX century the painter Telemaco Signorini, one of the Macchiaioli stayed in this territory and about the area as a place with a wild, primitive environment. The word “Sciacchetrà” could be of Genoese origins because in that dialect the prefix “scia” refers to ‘lady’, and we know (it is widely documented in the Vie dell’Acciuga) that those who sold that kind of products were mainly women. It is likely that the name of the wine is the result of a confidential relationship, a deal between the Genoese merchants and the women of the villages : “Scià, che trae?” lady what are you hiding, what is so precious in that small barrel hidden behind that you don’t want to sell me? The famous passito wine was so precious that winemakers reluctantly sold it- Beautiful secular stories of daily life, stories of encouters and comparisons between rural life and merchantile civilization. Stories of hard work, of flourishing rural economies and great literature.
Nella sua sede di Groppo di Riomaggiore, costruita nel 1982 con gli stessi materiali impiegati per il terrazzamento delle vigne, la Cantina della Cooperativa Agricoltura delle Cinque Terre è l’unica, importante realtà produttiva della zona che assicura un elevato livello di investimenti nelle più moderne tecnologie di vinificazione. E ciò con un solo, costante proposito: far sprigionare dalla produzione limitatissima di questi vigneti tutto il sapore e tutta la suggestione delle Cinque Terre.
Un territorio , un vino
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. MANUGUERRA, A Tavola con Dante nella Lunigiana dei Malaspina, Artingenio, Firenze, 2018.
Loc. Groppo di Manarola Riomaggiore (SP) Tel. +39 0187.920435
Dante mentions the Lunigian slope of the Apuan Alps only once, in Inferno XX, 47
Aruns, with rere his belly facing, comes. On Luni’s mountains ‘midst the marble white, where delves Carrara’s hind, who wons beneath, a cavern was his dwelling, whence the stars and main sea wide in boundless view he held
(Inferno XX 46-51)
The poet praises Aronte, the etruscan fortune teller who during the civil war between Caesar and Pompeo forecast the victory of the former, and lives in a cave among the marble blocks of the Apuan Alps.
Lucano, a latin poet, one of Dante’s favourites (in the famous six line stanza, Inferno IV) placed the charming teller not among the quarries but in the heart of the ager lunensis, namely the walls of Luni strangely described as deserted “Arruns incoluit desertae moenia Lunae” (Pharsalia I, 580). The “deserted walls” can only mean that the town was abandoned, empty.
Dante who exalted the ideal of the Roman Empire certainly did not like the idea of a deserted imperial Luni and without any previous historical or literary trace gave Aronte a fanciful residence high up in the Carrara
teller Aronte
Map of the territory
mountains. The poet adopted without any reservation the Lunigiana residence of the teller. (we know that some codes have the variant Lucae, so moving the seat of the great Etruscan fortune teller to the town of Lucca).
Dante gave him a wider vision on fortune matters by transferring him to the huge marble heights and there observe the sky. But by doing so the poet once more goes against the tradition of Lucano giving Aronte divine gifts in the observation of the vault of heaven rather than in
the flight of birds or entrails as in the latin poem.
The reference to Aronte recalls the mining area of Fantiscritti, with the old Roman quarry. The name comes from the wonderful bas-relief of the imperial age which was found in a niche with the figures of Jupiter, Bacchus and Hercules, called by the locals “fanti” (the boys or young men) and “scritti” (sculptures).
The precious sculpture discovered by Ciriaco d’Ancona in the 14th century and now kept in the famous Academy of Fine Arts has always been considered by the Sholar Tradition as “the ancient temple where ..... Aronte went to practice his religion” but this is only a contamination caused by
the reference of Dante as the Popular Tradition tells only that the place aroused the curiosity of Michelangelo who went to Carrara several times looking for blocks of marble for his immortal creations.
A further quotation by Dante welcomed by almost all commentators is in Canto XXXII Inferno:
... had Tabernich or Pietrapana fallen, not e’en its rim had creaked
(Inferno XXXII, 28-30)
The gigantic size of the two rocky peaks in the Apuan Alps is used as the ideal measure of hardness of the infernal glaciers of Cocito. The first peak “Tambernicchi” (an idiotic term invented to create a rhyme) identifies Monte Tambura (“Stamberlicche” in the writings of the time). Pania della Croce, the second peak belongs to the territory of Garfagnana in Lucchesia and its reference is not part of specific studies about Dante and Lunigiana. A final tercet by Cino da Pistoia, addressed to the marquis Moroello Malaspina is worth mentioning (trying to find a gold mine), it is part of an exchange of letters of the three and is included in Dante’s work “Rime” (CXII).
Before my death comes, my lord will be able to transform into hard gold , the mountain that already made marble become a spring
It is quite easy to understand that the marble mentioned in the passage is the one that comes from the Apuan Alps, therefore conferming the idea that the Poetic correspon-
71
dence between Dante, Cino and Moroello di Giovagallo is of Lunigian origin, included in Dante’s Rime. The municipality of Carrara and its people are subject of contention in the Atti della Pace di Castelnuovo.
The popular tradition has a huge relevance, in many places of the territory a motto by Dante is well remembered, popular songs used to insult the opponent hamlets, boasting a Dantesque authority. The marble that rules the area, acted as a source of inspiration for Dante and many other local followers of the poet, among which we can find Arturo Dazzi (-Milazzo) and great artists such as Michelangelo, Canova that came personally here to choose the blocks of marble for their immortal creations.
Four great Lunigian scholars come from this area Emanuele Repetti (1776-1852 from Carrara), Carlo Andrea Fabbricotti (1864-1935 from Carrara), Luigi Staffetti (1869-1929 from Massa), Giovanni Sforza (1846-1922 from Montignoso).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rosa Maria GALLENI PELLEGRINI, I ‘genius loci’: Dante e Michelangelo, in *Il marmo, l’uomo e la memoria, Carrara, L’Eco Apuano editore, 1996, pp. 17-20.
Beniamino GEMIGNANI, Dante, Carrara e Val di Magra - I riferimenti al territorio nelle opere del Poeta, Sea, Carrara, 2005.
Claudio PALANDRANI, Dante, i Malaspina e la Lunigiana, Massa, Apua Service, 2005.
Mirco MANUGUERRA, Lunigiana Dantesca, Edizioni del Centro Lunigianese di Studi Danteschi, La Spezia, 2006.
AT THE TABLE WITH DANTE IN LUNIGIANA
It is not easy to define which was Dante’s Menu, it would be useful for our research reading what Dante stated in his essays about food, however we have to pay great attention and refer only to culinary topics. Trying to determine which kind of traditional food and wine of Val di Magra suited the Poet’s tastes (Dante’s Lunigianese Menu) we understood, that the Poet was able to adapt to any situation,and as stated in Boccaccio’s work Vita
Dal 1966, produciamo artigianalmente Testaroli, Panigacci, Focaccette e le tipiche torte di verdura della Lunigiana. Vi aspettiamo nel nostro punto vendita, dove troverete le migliori specialità del nostro territorio.
di Dante, Dante preferred a simple vegetarian diet, in fact he mocked greedy people in a famous tenson where he wrote about the “revenge of the meat eaten”.
We won’t discuss the fact that in a poem about Christianity like the Divine Comedy, Bread and Wine come first, Terra della Luna is rich in both, there is a variety of typical bread (the famous Pane di Vinca) and most valid wine cellars. With regard to the Cinque Terre the only wine that Dante ever mentioned was Vernaccia (Pur XXIV 23-24) so he was surely thinking of the divine Sciacchetrà.
However at the table we will serve something with a red blood colour, a wine with a strong character just like Dante had, we suggest the award winning wine cellar “Cantina Lunae”, CLSD label by the master of wine Paolo Bosoni, Verba Dantis, a precious PGI from the eastern coast of Liguria, that has all the right features.
Azienda familiare con attività in campo vitivinicolo, produce vini in controtendenza utilizzando esclusivamente vitigni autoctoni che hanno ricevuto importanti riconoscimenti (unico vino di fronte al quale si era inginocchiato Luigi Veronelli).
Le vigne sono in località “La Costa” di Pontremoli, mentre la cantina storica è in località Santa Giustina.
Su appuntamento visita alla cantina e degustazione presso la “Cortina di Cacciaguerra” per gruppi di 20 persone (prezzo 8€ a testa).
Piazza Repubblica 1 - Pontremoli (MS)
The rural tradition uses bread to make excellent Bruschette perfect for an aperitif (Boccaccio called it “roast bread”), dressed with “olive liquer” (Paradise XXI 115116) which is the mesmerizing olive oil from the press. Olive oil is so important for Dante and Lunigiana that we will present it in a separate article.
The queens of the cuisine in Lunigiana are the many Vegetable Pies, among which Torta d’Erbi, the triumph of spring, then healthy Soups and Vegetable Soups will follow on the menu.
In Val di Vara there is the ancient local tradition of making Panigacci, boiled and dressed with olive oil and cheese, or tasted (but not with Dante) stuffed with salami and cheese. Testarolo is well known all over Italy thanks to excellent pro-
Sara Mulliri
Sara Mulliri
ducers. As concers second courses we know for sure that Dante was very fond of Mushrooms, and Lunigiana is the capital of this product. Porcini the kings of the woods, can be used to dress pasta and polente (with no tomato sauce in Dante’s menu), fried or in olive oil. Galletti as well as other mushroom are used as precious
Il Ristorante Abramo, a pochi chilometri dall’uscita autostradale, è il luogo in cui gustare la tradizionale cucina lunigianese. E’ dotato di un salone luminoso con tavoli ben distanziati e vista sul giardino. Il ristorante, aperto solo a pranzo, offre posti anche all’aperto. Vi è disponibilità di ampio parcheggio e di camere per soggiornare.
dressing or cooked in the pan with parsley.
We finish our meal with desserts, a good jam tart made with plums, figs or the excellent grandma’s Ap-
ple Pie, served with a glass of the divine Sciacchetrà. Prugnolo is the right nightcap, the liqueur of the Malaspina family, made with plums, the famous Spino, dry or in
Sara Mulliri
Sara Mulliri
Sara Mulliri
bloom that is on the emblem of the great Lords of Dante’s Lunigiana. Odd enough fish is not metioned by Dante, and not even chestnut flour, another rich product for which Lunigiana is famous. As regards Pesto, the excellent Ligurian product, the soul of this region, was unfortunately invented later, but there were precious pestos in the fourteenth century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. MANUGUERRA, A tavola con Dante (nella Lunigiana dei Malaspina), con saggio introduttivo di GIUSEPPE BENELLI sulla cucina del Trecento, Firenze, Artingenio Edizioni, 2018.
Sara Mulliri
Prodotto con bacche di pruni selvatici della Lunigiana
SCOPRI DI PIÙ
LIQUORE DI PRUNI
[…] that with no costiler viands tha the juice of olives easily I passed the heats and the frosts
When Dante presents San Pier Damiani he says of the olive oil “liquor d’ulivi” (olive oil liquor) as being higlly precious, and in fact we are in the elected area of Paradise.
Olive oil was so pure that the saint easily passed from “smoothly” without great difficulties hot summers and cold winters (heat and frost). In the celebration of the olive
oil Dante quotes “food” with special healthy properties like large mixed salads, soups, broth, vegetable soups of all kindsm not to forget the famous bruschetta.
Nowadays extra virgin oil is made with a mechanical procedure in an oil mill, using Italian olives.
In Val di Magra and in the Gulf of Poets the olives Razzòla are the ones used mainly to produce excellent olive oil. It is a type of olive rich in pulp with great organoleptic properties, so as to make it suitable for a spelt soup or the extraordinary Mesciua, a
typical dish of La Spezia. The Razzola olive has received valuable critics when compared to the Taggiasca type, there is an internationally known olive oil mill called Lucchi & Guastalli that grow the razzola olives in the area of Santo Stefano di Magra, along the Via Francigena.
Marco Lucchi, an agronomist and Carlo Guastalli an agro expert have worked hard to develop and enchance the ancient art of olive produce in the area of Lunigiana.
Prima azienda a fregiarsi della D.O.P.Denominazione di Origine Protetta “Riviera Ligure” per l’olio extravergine di oliva , è costantemente impegnata nella ricerca della massima qualità e della valorizzazione delle produzioni locali. L’azienda opera senza produzione di rifiuti oleari, le biomasse residue sono infatti totalmente recuperate a scopo energetico. L’azienda è punto di riferimento per attività culturali e formative, corsi di formazione per assaggiatori e olivicoltori, visite guidate agli oliveti e allo stabilimento di produzione.
Those tongues to sound that Polyhymnia with the sisters fed with the sweetest and fattest milk […]
Par XXIII 55-57
Dante does not mention cheese, however to talk about about other food he uses a traditional metaphor extremely well, when he writes about the very sweet milk with which the muses nourished the languages of the poets. This is enough for us to think that Dante had the highest regards for milk and therefore for all its derivatives. In Lunigiana the queen of cheese is for sure Valle del Biologico, thanks to the products made by Cooperativa Casearia ‘Val di Vara’.
It is good to know that big cheese wheels were made in Lunigiana in Roman times, evidence is provided by Marziale, who mentioned them in his famous Epigrams (XIII 30): «Caseus Etruscae signatus imagine Lunae/Praestabit pueris prandia mille tuis» which means that cheese marked with the Etruscan Moon, will offer your children countless meals.
The representatives of La Spezia’s Accademia della Cucina have recently stated that the Lunense mark does not refer to the cheese that comes from Parma, as we always thought, but to the local production, therefore the famous grana has a forerunner in Lunigiana.
Loc. Perazza - Varese Ligure (SP)
Tel. +39 0187 842108
coopcasearia.it - info@coopcasearia.it Il gusto fresco di
La Cooperativa Casearia Val di Vara nasce nell’Alta Val di Vara, denominata “La Valle del Biologico” per gli oltre 2000 ettari di prati e pascoli certificati bio, grazie al desiderio degli allevatori di raccogliere e trasformare nel proprio caseificio tutto il latte prodotto nella valle. Le antiche ricette di caseificazione sono state integrate con le moderne tecnologie alimentari per garantire il massimo della qualità e della genuinità.
I nostri principali prodotti, tutti senza coloranti o conservanti chimici sono:
