The Lunigiana is an area bordering the Garfagnana located between the provinces of Massa Carrara and La Spezia. It is a land gathering characteristic elements of the Liguria, Tuscany and Emilia landscapes, without any of theses three dominating the other in a decisive manner.

The Lunigiana is characterised by various natural landscapes influenced by the nearby Apennine of Tuscany and Emilia and the Apuane Alps, that are closing it in a valley crossed by the Magra river and its affluent.
This territory offers therefore numerous possibilities of choice for who wants to explore it. One can chose to focus on the natural beauties, from parks to lakes, from caves to flourished grasslands, or one can decide to visit the numerous medieval villages, the castles or the important archaeological sites demonstrating the various human settlements that have been present and the transition of pilgrims on the way of the historic Via Francigena.
Finally, one can chose to visit the ways of the antique lunigiana rural civilisation, going through mountain grasslands on the mule paths spread of terms and water-points or walking through the chestnuts, facing the terraces nicely realised by the lunigiani farmers.
The name of the area is coming from Luni, city founded by the Romans in 177 before Christ close to the Magra river, from which left some of the settlers who occupied the areas of the Apuane Alps and of the Versilia, after the deportation of the Liguria inhabitants. With the fall of the Roman Empire, it was sacked by Vandals and occupied by the Ostrogoths and after them by the Byzantines, Lombard and the Francs.
Under the domination of these last ones, at the time of Charlemagne (VIII-IX century), the territory of the Lunigiana was given to the Adalberti.
Around 1000 the Lunigiana was an administration and a powerful diocese gathering under its jurisdiction centres of the Liguria, of the high Tuscany and of the actual province of Parma. Around the XII century, the Adalberti took the name of Malaspina and, in 1220, the family divided itself in two branches. Were therefore founded the two seigniorial districts of Mulazzo and Filattiera, always devoted to the German emperors. However, only a small part of the Lunigiana was belonging to e representative of the Estensi, a family from Emilia, this always on the will of the German crown.
The Lunigiana became then a land disputed between Genoa, Lucca, Pisa, Florence, Parma and Milan. After the Congress of Vienna of 1814, it was divided among the Kingdom of Sardinia, under the domination of the Savoy family, and the Duchies of Modena and Parma, up to the moment when the Unification of Italy brought back the entire area under an unique flag.
Nowadays, along the territory of the Lunigiana, it is still possible to see the traces of Via Francigena, a large road used by pilgrims and traders who from the Northern Europe were going towards Rome. Declared in 1994 "Cultural Itinerary of the European Council", it is said to be a road designed by the Lombard, called at the origin "via di Monte Bardone", that was guaranteeing the communications with the capital city Pavia. It was mainly born to avoid to the Lombard caravans to take the eastern roads, controlled by the Byzantine enemies, and the western ones, along the coast of Liguria where to their traditional rivalries were also added the dangerous incursions of pirates.
The paludification of large areas of the Maremma had also made impracticable the "via Aurelia" for those who wanted to reach Rome.
In the 9^th century the road took its actual name to underline the domination of the Francs. Along the road, in the course of the centuries, were founded monasteries and abbeys, underlining the "spiritual" nature of this way, although it was also an important connection for the traders and for the political control over Rome from a part of the Sacred Roman Empire.