MASSA
Art and nature trails between the Apuan Alps and the sea: a landscape that has bewitched countless traveling artists
Teresa Pamphili and the Rinchiostra: from forest to garden of delights
A Lucca poet, Cosimo Giorgieri Contri, moves in the nineteenth century through the detached enchantment of Massa‘s ancient ducal villa, which once belonged to the Cybo Malaspina family .
Rinchiostra: enclosed island in the heart of the city’s bustling fabric, at evening you recall memories and from your airy terrace of white Apuan marble open your gaze to the majestic alpe. Not far away, the sea leads light salty winds.
And sings the poet in the dim light of the last romantic crepuscolarism the octobristal idle and lost rows of roses that a Guido Gozzano would have loved so much.
A light step still resounds in the ancient park, an echo of secrets recalling a bygone spring and a woman’s face lit by a spring moon.
What happened in the villa, three hundred years ago, to the maiden in love? Why did her gaze from pensive irises fade so soon? Where are the runaway duke and Princess Teresa, young Roman bride, today? Do the lords always come from Lucca or Fiorenza to rest among the lilies and cypresses among which the Rinchiostra still smiles?
Gigi Guadagnucci, grace and strength in the soul of forms
Today, as a precious treasure chest, the 17th-century Villa, nestled in the seaside plain of Massa, encloses in the underground crypt and among the mighty ancient pillars the marbles worked with infinite wisdom by “Gigi,” a sculptor distinguished in Apuan, French and world lands.
More than forty works, donated to his hometown, tell the whole artistic journey of the master.
As white unexpected presences surprise the visitor, and the rich and highly varied forms of the sculptures are made of lightness that plays and captures emotions in the fascinated relationship with light.
Another garden, between the mountains and the sea: the Botanical Garden
Those millennial peaks that guard the shining stone, beloved by Gigi, are colored with green and Pascoli’s “immense sapphire” in a
It is enough to venture a few kilometers along the winding road that climbs up cool, wooded slopes, through silent villages, for one’s gaze to open on the town of Massa, nestled at the foot of the imposing Malaspina Castle, with its secret garden of Time, and, beyond, on the blue line of the arch of coastline that embraces Versilia and the Gulf of Poets until one can glimpse the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago on the clearest days.
Experienced and passionate guides await to lead you along the loop trail around the laboratory hut, amid a varied and colorful bloom of rare and endemic plants, which wink out on the paths among the greenery or the crushed rocks.
You’ll be able to breathe in their scent, mixed with the balm of that sea never so far away that you can’t run to experience it whenever you want.