"Gli Appennini sono per me un pezzo meraviglioso del creato. Alla grande pianura della regione padana segue una catena di monti che si eleva dal basso per chiudere verso sud il continente tra due mari (....) è un così bizzarro groviglio di pareti montuose a ridosso l'una dall'altra; spesso non si può nemmeno distinguere in che direzione scorre l'acqua."
J. W. Goethe, Viaggio in Italia (1786 - 1788)
Many are the religious centers scattered around the dorsal of the Tosco-Emiliano Appenine: principally they are parish churches and more specifically abbays.
Around church-towers and monastic cloisters a big number of consciences have been instructed towards the principles of Christianity.

Here the knowledge was broken to every man who approached Christ Gospel.
Each parish had its own school managed by the priest who ran itand each monastery was a huge laboratory to learn to know and investigate cultural texts, to improve in arts and crafts.

So, schools of agricolture, silvicolture, ebanistery, sculpture, picture rise. Crucial is thecontributionfrom the monks of the abbays who from the end of the VIII century starts to cultivate always larger territories buildingfarms, churches and castles.

Under the spiritual guide of the priests and the monks rise the religious and devotional traditions of thevariouscommunitiesthat endure manytimes until today.
As witness of the dynamism of the religious life of these centuries thereare manylibraries strewn in the different abbays with thousands of volumes and many incunabula.

Written for this site by Don Evaristo Stefanelli.
We remark also a site of the Santuario della B.V. del Rosario of Serra in Ripoli, rich of cultural and religious tradition:


grande quercia all'ingresso del borgo. Concessa da Dott.sa Giovanna Borgia.


l'Antica Pieve di San Pietro di Roffeno. Scattata dallo studio fotografico Indello.


la Pieve in una notte d'estate. Concessa da Dott.sa Giovanna Borgia.