This road called Francigena because, at first, it was the Rome-France axis, was made as a demonstration of the renew christian spirituality around the end of the first millennium.

It expressed the mobility of man, in particular the christian one, who was looking for the real root of faith; it was, in this sense, the most important european crossroads of the so called “Peregrinationes Maiores”, that is those routes that led to the most important christian sites like Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela.

These great streams of pilgrimage that during the centuries walked this road, met, joining together, that is separating on their way back, actually, in the Magra Valley in a place between Caprigliola and Sarzana.

Sarzana could be reached, from the Via Francigena through Bardone mountain (now the Cisa Pass) then crossing Pontremoli and Aulla till the valley in which there were Caprigliola, Santo Stefano and Sarzana; othewise it could be reached passing through the so called “Terre Alte” (high lands) going up to Bibola and then coming down, bordering on Ponzano Superiore, towards Sarzana, along the Amola stream.

In this point the route met the Brina castle, at the foot of the hill of Falcinello on the right bank of the stream, that had important tasks of street control and collections of tolls.
This fact explains how this castle, of which few ruins are left, apparently, marginal in respect of the road network of that time, had such a great importance during the XIII century to break out a war in Lunigiana between the Malaspina and the Bishops of Luni.

And it was for signing the peace between the two highest authorities in Lunigiana that, on the 6th October 1306, Dante Alighieri came first to Sarzana and then to Castelnuovo Magra, as procurator of the Malaspina.

The junction to Santiago de Compostela was near Santo Stefano, where the Francigena, coming down Bardone mountain, met the consular road Aemilia Scauri that went on towards the Bracco Pass making, thus, a connection with Genoa and the west side of Liguria.

The medieval road, walked by thousands of pilgrims of different languages and countries, became a central element of the public and religious life of the time, a real stage on which men and goods moved incessantly.

The economic and demographic development of the countries, but also the cultural and artistic one, are, largely, conditional on the development of the great routes chosen by the christian masses.

In this sense we can, rightfully, state that Sarzana and the Magra Valley are surely daughters of Luni , that is the decay of it brought life to different villages on the hills around but they are in debt to the Francigena road for their development.

Giuseppe Meneghini