Castelnuovo Magra

Castelnuovo Magra sits on the last ridge of Liguria before the Magra river marks the Tuscan border. The bishop-counts of Luni built their stronghold here between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, choosing the ridge for the view it commanded over the river crossing and the plain below. The village grew around that fortified seat, with the centro storico still gathered close to the tower and castle ruins while the vineyards spread out below on the terraced slopes, the same ground that now carries the Colli di Luni Vermentino down toward the Magra.

The Via Francigena skirts the ridge on its way down to Sarzana, threading olive groves rather than the village center itself, so the pilgrim route and the fortified hilltop have always belonged to slightly different lines of movement through this stretch of the border. A reenactment in period costume, La Pace di Dante, marks the October anniversary of the 1306 treaty each year. What the ridge amounts to is a border post twice over: a line the bishops and marquises once fought to hold, and the line, still visible in the tower and the terraces, between the fortified hill and the vine-growing slopes it has always overlooked.