Lunigiana, in the very north of Toscana, is a nature lovers paradise, and we are lucky enough to live there! You could spend a lifetime exploring the spider’s web of sentieri (footpaths) and ancient strade comunali (communal roads) that connect the many little towns and villages tucked away in its green hills. You can also learn a lot about the history and traditions of Lunigiana by taking the time to ‘fare due chiacchiere’ (have a chat) with the locals, who are traditionally very hospitable.

A few days ago we decided to explore a part of Lunigiana that we’d never visited before which is called Zeri, and is located close to the border between Toscana and Liguria. Zeri is fairly unique in that it doesn’t exist as a single place but is, instead, a collection of villages dispersed over a high altopiano (plateau) furrowed by the valleys of three rivers: Il Gordana, Il Teglia, and L’Adelano. Being a posto sperduto (out of the way place), and relatively inaccessible, life there seems to be frozen in a time warp, just the sort of place we enjoy exploring!

We began our walk near the village of Noce. Anyone who has tried trekking in Italy will know that the only maps available are quite out of date, and not very reliable. So rule number one, and here is a big incentive for improving your Italian, always ask the locals. A few meters from our car we saw an old lady sweeping her terrazza, and my husband promptly began quizzing her about the location and state of the sentiero that we had hoped to follow. “Non ci si passa più!” (you can’t get through anymore!), was her prompt reply. She advised us instead to follow the old strada comunale (basically a paved mule track) to Coloretta, once the only means of reaching the next village before the Strada Provinciale was built. She gave us surprisingly precise directions, which included, of course, a bit of her life story, because people living in these remote villages are generally quite content to pass the time of day with a forestiero (outsider).

As advised, we followed the lovely old trail through the little stone village of Noce and then out across hilly pastures dotted with pecore (sheep) and capre (goats). One thing that we noticed straight away was the large number of maestà (wayside shrines, also called madonnine) which appear at regular intervals along the old strada. Unfortunately unscrupulous ladri (thieves) had been at work on several of them and had pried out the marble lapidi (stones carved with a holy image) in order to sell them on the antique markets.

Having crossed a small torrent near an old ruined mill, we ascended the other side of the valley, and soon found ourselves in the piazza at Coloretta. Apart from a few newish cars there was nothing to break the illusion that time had ceased here sometime in the 1970’s, certainly some of the faded window displays hadn’t changed since that time! In the boot of one of those newer cars, the arrotino (knife grinder) was at work with a small electrical grind stone hooked up to his car battery, sharpening an assortment of kitchen implements for the local casalinghe (housewives).

Lunigiana is a small world, and it wasn’t long before a familiar face appeared, Beppe the pescivendolo (fishmonger), who spends two days a week travelling around the winding mountain roads in this area selling his wares in all the local villages. We didn’t have much time to chat because he soon had a queue of casalinghe next to his little van/shop, he did recommend, however, that we continue our exploratory walk to another nearby village called Castello.

As you may have guessed from its name, Castello did once boast a real castello (castle), although all that remains today are a few rather indistinct low piles of rubble. As is often the case where good quality building materials are hard to come by, it seems that most of the castle has been ‘recycled’ over the centuries, and what was left had mostly been dismantled by the local kids, as was testified to us by an old man that my husband ‘interrogated’: “Sì, una volta c’era un castello in cima a quella collina lì” (Yes, there was once a castle on that hill over there). “Da bambino si vedevano ancora dei resti dei muri” (when I was a boy you could still see some remains of the walls). “Io ci andavo spesso a giocare con i miei amici, e buttavamo i sassi giù nella valle, era l’unico divertimento che avevamo!” (I often went there to play with my friends, and we used to throw the stones down into the valley, it was the only entertainment we had!). So, that was end of the castle! I suppose that the kids of today would have been too busy playing with their Nintendo’s or cell phones, and hence a piece of our heritage would have been saved from their destructive games.

We did manage to glean some interesting pieces of information from a sign located near the remaining piles of rubble. However, as is often the case in these little places, it told us more about the morals and attitudes of the period and the place itself than any precise historical data. Here is what the sign said:

Castello prende il nome da un preesistente castello che si ergeva sull’altura a nord del paese. Oggi sono solamente visibili i resti del “Castrum Zirri”, la base di una torre, un muro di cinta e massi di colore verdastro. Secondo la leggenda, il castello era possessione dei marchesi Malaspina e l’ultimo discendente fu ucciso con una fucilata dal padre di una ragazza della famiglia degli “Osti”. La fanciula infatti era promessa sposa ad un giovane del paese, ma il  Malaspina voleva esercitare lo “ius primae noctis”. La ragazza non voleva, ed era disperata. Il padre allora attese che il marchese si affacciasse alla finestra come era solito fare tutte le mattine alle undici, e gli sparò uccidendolo!

Translation:

Castello takes its name from a preexisting castle which stood on the high ground to the north of the village. Today, only the remains of the ‘Castrum Zirri’ are visible, including the base of a tower, an encircling wall, and some large greenish boulders. According to the legend, the castle was in the possession of the  Marquis Malaspina, and the last remaining descendent was shot to death by the father of a girl from the Osti family. The lass was in fact engaged to be married to a local boy, but the Malaspina wanted to exercise his right of “ius primae noctis” (literally: the right to the ‘first night’. In the middle ages some feudal landlords reserved the right to spend the wedding night with the newly wed brides of their subjects in place of their husband). The girl didn’t want this, and was desperate. The father therefore waited until the marquis leaned out of his window as he usually did every morning at 11 o’clock, and he fired his gun and killed him!

Ah, the good old days!