Filattiera

Filattiera is one of the five Kastra of the Byzantine limes whose existence in Lunigiana was attested by Giorgio Ciprio, historian of the Lombards. The name of the village itself is unanimously considered by scholars a typical legacy of that era. Furthermore, the archaeological excavations conducted by Professor Tiziano Mannoni have confirmed the existence of the ancient military station of Kastron Soreon (named after the ancient Romanesque church of Sorano), which was placed as a garrison of what would later become the European route par excellence, the Itinerary completed in 990 by Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, which today we celebrate as Via Francigena. 

When in 1221 Corrado Malaspina (called “the Ancient” by Dante in Pur VIII) divided, with his cousin Obizzino, the great family fief into Spino Secco (Ghibelline branch) and Spino Fiorito (Guelph branch), choosing as the capitals of the two new dynastic lines Mulazzo and Filattiera respectively, the historical legacies of the two villages had to be very similar. If Mulazzo can be identified with the pentagonal base of the ancient tower (which has always been called “Dante’s Tower”), in the same way, unsurprisingly, Filattiera can be identified with the San Giorgio Tower, a construction from ancient times where the Epigraph of Leodgar is preserved, a sepulchral stele from 752 that represents one of the oldest written records (in Latin hexameters) of Lunigiana of the Middle Ages. 

The Pieve of Sorano, an equally extraordinary monument, has always been home to three statues menhir, confirming that the pagan idols of prehistoric Lunigiana were not destroyed by the Christians, as it is tritely believed, but were exorcised and preserved within the new sacred territory.