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23-574: Fosdinovo borders the following municipalities: Aulla , Carrara , Castelnuovo Magra , Fivizzano , Ortonovo , Sarzana . The town is home to a medieval castle of the Malaspina family , rulers of the duchy of Massa . Near to the castle is the church of San Remigio , built in the 13th century by the Bishops of Luni . The baroque church contains the marble tomb of the former Marquis Galeotto Malaspina . The Oratorio della Compagnia dei Bianchi (Oratory of

46-463: A 260 metre long road bridge at Albiano Magra near Aulla collapsed into the River Magra. The traffic on the bridge was unusually light due to the coronavirus lockdown then in force, and the collapse resulted in only minor injuries to two casualties. Lunigiana The Lunigiana ( pronounced [luniˈdʒaːna] ) or Lunesana is a historical territory of Italy , which today falls within

69-474: A Roman town, perhaps pre-dated by an Etruscan settlement, which became the principal urban center on the northern Tuscan coast. Some contend that the name Luni refers to the Moon, a celestial body whose beauty is made all the more attractive when framed by the white-peaked Apuan Alps and high Apennine Mountains . Others maintain, though little or no evidence exists, that the region was populated by those who worshiped

92-739: A good state of preservation; others, such as the castle of Agnino di Fivizzano , have fallen into ruin. It was in these castles that Dante found respite during his stay in Lunigiana. The historical origins of these castles date back to times when the Lombards dominated most of the Pianura Padana and, seeking an outlet on the Ligurian/Tuscan coast, they found in the Cisa Pass and the Cerreto Pass , near

115-549: A result of these monumental struggles for control of Lunigiana. Moreover, when the Malaspina (one of the leading Lunigianese dynasties during the Middle Ages) played an import part in both the local politics of Lunigiana and the politics of northern Italy, they built a great number of castles, which were used as residences and fortifications by which several branches of the dynasty defended the territory. Some scholars contend that with

138-584: Is twinned with: This Province of Massa-Carrara location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Aulla Aulla is a comune in the province of Massa and Carrara , Tuscany, central Italy. It is located in the valley of the River Magra . In 1977, the Italian geologist Augusto Azzaroli discovered a series of mammal rests with a correlated fauna in the adjacent locality of Olivola . The so-called Olivola Conglomerates dated back to

161-724: The Villafranchian age are relatively common in Italy. Traces of Roman and Etruscan civilizations found in the church of the Abbey of San Caprasio indicate that there were settlements in Aulla long before the 8th century CE, when margrave Adalbert I of Tuscany founded a village and built a castle to accommodate pilgrims traveling the via Francigena . Here, at Aguilla Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury , sojourned on his return journey from Rome about 990. The Malaspina family wrested feudal power of

184-669: The Fellowship of the Whites) was built in the 16th century and features a white marble facade donated by Pasquale Malaspina in 1666. Fosdinovo is the seat of the Medieval Festival of Fosdinovo (July) and the Forza del Sorriso Festival (Strength of the Smile Festival) (the fourth weekend of August). This second festival is a new, vital festival where the chief theme is the smile. Fosdinovo

207-548: The Milanese took more northern parts of Lunigiana. Meanwhile, some northeastern Lunigianese towns came under the control of either Parma or Modena . Nevertheless, the most strategic parts of ancient Lunigiana began to come under the control of the Florentine state in the early 15th century. By the second half of that century, Tuscan possession of most of Lunigiana was secured with the incorporation of Fivizzano and its vast territory into

230-588: The Moon. As if to unite history and myth, the symbol of contemporary Lunigiana is a crescent moon held in the claw of a bear. The earliest recorded inhabitants of this region may have been the Apuani (from which is derived the name of the Apuan mountain chain), an ancient Ligurian people, as well as Etruscans who may have inhabited towns along the coast and even the hamlets near in-land trade routes. Curiously, while evidence of both Roman and later Medieval settlements are ample,

253-502: The centuries, many large and small (now picturesque) castles were built in Lunigiana, but at the cost of weakening the overall power of the family at each generation. As a region which controls the passage from Tuscany to the northern territories of Lombardy and Parma , as well as from Tuscany to the eastern lands of Liguria and across the Apennines into Reggio Emilia, Lunigiana was fought over for centuries in countless wars which pitted

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276-563: The city and its contada from the domination of the bishops and dukes of Luni. In 1543 the Centurione family purchased it. They built the Brunella Fortress  [ it ] , which was bought in the early 20th century by Aubrey and Lina Waterfield , and remains privately owned, functioning as a museum of natural history for the Lunigiana region. One of the most important buildings of

299-522: The coastal road through Liguria and to Gaul (modern France) and across the Apennines into what is now the province of Reggio Emilia . Upon significant sections of this Roman road, the Lombards would later build the Via Francigena , for the control of which there were bloody and ferocious struggles among the local nobility, concerned with the maintenance of their dominion and fiefdoms , as well as between

322-429: The growth of flourishing branches of the Malaspina dynasty, the inheritance of Lunigianese feudal territories by the ever contesting large and small branches of the family eventually brought about a diminution of individual holdings causing, in the end, the parceling of fiefdoms into increasingly smaller estates, all of which needed to be protected through the building of castles and other stone fortifications. Thus, through

345-683: The hypothesis of a temperate to warm climate. Deer fossils have also been found in Aulla, from the Procaproleus causanus and Pseudodama pardinensis lyra species which in the Western Europe "are characteristic of the mammal assemblages of the Early [Villafranchian" period (3.5-1.0 Ma). These animal fossils contrast with the oldest and deepest strata of sedimentary deposits and the so-called Olivola Conglomerates. Some researchers supposed they didn't originate in this area, given that fossils referred to

368-409: The late Villafranchian age (1.0 to 3.5 million years ago). In the following year, a first level of continental sedimentary remains was found at a depth of 250 metres, with the following archaic tree species: Taxodium , Sequoia , Magnolia , Symplocos and Sapotaceae . In Europe, these species are usually dated to the pre- Pleistocene (over 2.5 million years ago). Their presence confirmed

391-560: The native feudal dynasties against one another. Then, in order to gain control of this strategic region, Luccans fought Pisans, Pisa struggled with Genoese, Milanese struck out against the Modense and Florentines made war on them all. While the Genoese were able to gain control of La Spezia , Lerici , Sarzana and much of the littoral coast all the way from the Cinque Terre to ancient Luni itself,

414-575: The provinces of Massa Carrara , Tuscany , and La Spezia , Liguria . Its borders derive from the ancient Roman settlement, later the medieval diocese of Luni , which no longer exists. Lunigiana, a mountainous region dissected by the Magra river, covers an area which runs from the Apennines to the Mediterranean Sea, now belongs in part to Tuscany and in part to Liguria . It takes its name from Luni ,

437-580: The states of Pisa and Lucca and, later still, between Florence , Milan and Genoa . The most important castles in Lunigiana, including La Verrucola , the famous castle of Fivizzano formerly inhabited by the late artist Pietro Cascella , and the castle of the Piagnaro in Pontremoli , the Rocca of Villafranca , the Malaspina castle in the city of Massa and the fortified village of Filetto , had been built as

460-549: The town is the Abbey of San Caprasio that was founded in the 9th century and named after Saint Caprasius of Lérins , whose body was transferred to Aulla in the 10th century. In 1943, the historic center of Aulla was destroyed by Anglo-American bombings aimed at German troops stationed there during the Second World War . By the end of the war large sections of the city were obliterated by Anglo-American bombings which sought to destroy

483-560: The town of Fivizzano, the easiest ways to cross the Apennines. During ancient times, when the settlement of Luni , founded by the Romans in 177 BC, (today a site of significant Roman ruins and a modern museum) was a flourishing city and harbour, the Romans had already built solid defensive posts along the Via Aurelia , a major road which linked up central Italy to Lunigiana and from Lunigiana to both

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506-399: The town's key railroad network and gunpowder manufacturing plant. A replica of an unexploded bomb is preserved in the former abbey of San Caprasio, which is now a museum. In April 1945 the 442nd Infantry Regiment (United States) , aided by a significantly strong Italian partisan fighting force, liberated the city of Aulla, after fierce battles with retreating German troops. On 8 April 2020,

529-637: The wondrously appealing stele , late pre-historic and Bronze Age stone statues which have been found in large numbers in this part of Tuscany, remain the symbol of this ancient land. They are the first expression of the art and, perhaps, of the religious beliefs of the peoples that inhabited northern Tuscany from the Bronze Age to start of the Roman Empire . During the Middle Ages , there were 160 castles in Lunigiana, only thirty of which have reached our times in

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