Fivizzano

Borgo di Monte dei Bianchi

Lunigiana Villages

Ancient Village of the Bianchi di Erberia lineage

The Village of Monte dei Bianchi is located near the Village of Equi Terme, in the municipality of Fivizzano, but quite far from the homonymous main town. Houses are tightly packed together, perched on a hill between the valleys of Lucido and Aulella; a name tied to the whiteness of the habit worn by the Roquettini monks who, at least since the 11th century, lived here in the Monastery of San Michele Arcangelo. The remains of a defensive wall with towers surround the village, with the peaks of the Apuan Alps and the Apennines rising all around.

Monte dei Bianchi was listed among the ‘very fortunate lands’ where ‘excellent wines and oils, chestnuts, and very fine fruits’ were produced. The village seems to be aware of a past that few others can boast of, and of a lineage, the Bianchi di Erberia, whose memory has endured through the centuries, remaining strong up to the present day.

At the summit of the hill, the remains of fortifications testify to the millenary presence of the ‘castle of Monte di Monzone,’ mentioned as early as the 11th century among the possessions of Rodolfo da Casola, whose descendants would retain control over all the lands of the ‘white monks.’ Where the parish church now stands was the ancient monastery; beneath the bell tower, a small and renovated fortified building, next to recent elements (such as the bifora and the two monophora), features medieval remains and walls with some loopholes, revealing defensive functions.

A plaque recalls the history of the village, over which Countess Matilda of Canossa also extended her influence. The church, renovated in the 18th century, reveals some traces of its ancient history as a Romanesque church in its masonry: these are larger stones, made of light limestone, reused in what was a late Medieval expansion.
The entire brief development of the village deserves careful observation: between majesty and doorways, it also offers the view of a coat of arms with the flowering thorn, reminiscent of the Malaspina family, and, above all, a large chalice, carved into a block of sandstone, perhaps an ancient lintel that broke and was reused as a corner stone in a house. Some have interpreted this depiction as a reference to the cult of the Holy Grail (the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper), which has origins in the centuries preceding the Middle Ages and spread mainly during the 12th and 13th centuries.

Nearby you can find

The Village of Equi Terme, Grotte di Equi Terme, Mulino di Arlia, Pozze di Magliano.

Lunigiana World thanks our friend Paolo Bissoli for the text on the Village of Monte dei Bianchi.