The Fourteenth Century.
The fourteenth century is, for Lucca, in part a very sorrowful one – the plague and the Pisan domination – and in part not: the rule of Castruccio Castracani in the first two decades of the century, and the regained Liberty with the end of the Babylonian captivity (subjugation to Pisa from 1343 to 1369) in the second half of the century. In 1308 Lucca shows in its Statute the twelve Vicariates into which it has divided its territory. The one that includes Pariana is the Vicariate of Valdilima, but with the addition of the Terrarum Civium, the terre nuove of the citizens already mentioned.
Lucca is not only the center of economic development – let us never forget that the government of the city is entirely in the hands of merchants, bankers, and bourgeois manufacturers who obviously legislate in the interest of their guilds – but the very organization of production involves, as a whole, the city, the countryside, and the mountains. As already mentioned, activities are delocalized to the mountain villages, where there are looms for silk and cloth (weaving is done in hundreds of homes and by women), where there are forges to melt and work iron (in the area of Villa Basilica the art of sword-making and cutlery develops), where there are paper mills for paper production, where there are quarries, timber, lime kilns for construction, where there are flocks and animals for leather and hides, where there are forests for ship timber and oars and where, above all, there is food production, which operates in a closed system in which the countryside and mountains feed themselves and the city they serve (thousands of people) daily.
So, it is not only a matter of long-distance trade but also production and transport for an activity that functions as a large, dispersed factory that moves daily and requires a logistical structure to support the movement.
The first two decades of the fourteenth century are the time of one of Lucca’s industrial captains who became a prince, Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli. His story is well known, as is his expansion toward the surrounding territories of the maritime Lunigiana (centered on Sarzana), the inland Lunigiana where he clashes with Marquis Spinetta Malaspina, the Garfagnana, and the Lucchese mountains. It is known that, in 1315, Villa Basilica and its territory (therefore it is also likely Pariana) were granted to Azzo of the noble but bourgeoisified family of the Da Gragnana, an ancient feudal family from upper Garfagnana that had succeeded in becoming bourgeois and had allied itself with Lucca and Castruccio (Azzo was Castruccio’s son-in-law).
In 1320, Emperor Louis the Bavarian sanctioned by Diploma the government of Castruccio over the provinciis of the Lima Valley and Terre Civium, of the citizens, among which was Pariana.
DOMENICO PACCHI, HISTORICAL RESEARCH ON THE PROVINCE OF GARFAGNANA
In 1328 Castruccio dies, and a very sorrowful period begins, as mentioned, which Giovanni Sercambi outlines in his Croniche from the 14th to the 15th century, the time of Paolo Guinigi, lord of Lucca, also a member of a wealthy Lucchese mercantile family. In 1331, during the reign of King John of Bohemia, Pariana was joined with Villa Basilica to Pescia, and present at the act was a notary from Pariana, Ser Nicolao da Pariana, one of the members of those ruling classes of the village and mountain territory.
In 1355, yet another Diploma from Emperor Charles IV confirms to the Lucchese Diocese the Pieve of Villa Basilica and its plebanate, including the Church of Pariana. But by now these are acts that have little impact on the real politics and administration of the territory, which had passed to the City-States, the mercantile and financial world, and the local ruling classes.
AAL, Diploma of Emperor Charles IV again confirming – with the same wording – the possession of the Pieve of Villa Basilica and its Piviere, including Pariana, in 1355, as had already been done by Otto IV in 1209 and his predecessors.
As mentioned, Giovanni Sercambi described the events of Lucca and its lands in a beautiful handwritten and illuminated work. We refer here to one of the very few documents that mention Pariana. In it appears a mercenary soldier – Pariana was a land of swords and mountaineers skilled in wielding them – one of the many recruited from the Lucchese mountain region of Garfagnana. Because such is war:
When a man is at war, he must do it vigorously, when peace cannot be had.
GIOVANNI SERCAMBI, CHRONICLES, DEATH OF A SOLDIER FROM PARIANA.
And it was precisely Giovanni Sercambi who, in 1398, mentions the Fortress of Pariana, giving us information about the fortification and the castle of the village. A 14th-century fortress that could be the same depicted in a beautiful bas-relief on a portal in Pariana, dated 1524. See below.
The bas-relief is dated first 1524 and then 1770 (in Pariana, it is customary to date all building interventions: there are many carved dates), but it is possible that the dates were added later, since the fortress and the church are in relief, while the date is incised, carved in, and therefore may have been added afterward. Nevertheless, the tower, with corbels and arrow slits, and the crenellated structure are a splendid representation of the fortress that Sercambi urged Lucca to defend and preserve.
Regarding the Fortress of Pariana, I wish to note how the bas-relief that appears on the architrave is strikingly similar to the one we see in the painting portraying Castruccio Castracani, and entirely similar to the 13th–14th century castles, both those depicted in paintings and those still standing today (such as the Tower of Valgiano). This forms a body of evidence to support the claim that the Fortress of Pariana must have existed at least since the 14th century.
From 1369, however, the Babylonian captivity ends, that is, the domination of Pisa over Lucca, and the latter vigorously resumes its policy of territorial control. At the turn of the two centuries, Paolo Guinigi becomes lord of Lucca, and in his Carteggio we find information about the civil and military life taking place in Pariana—news that also comes from the Comune of Pariana, which was fully active.
CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI DEGLI ANTELMINELLI
The fifteenth century – a splendid century – was no less troubled than the previous one in terms of unrest, wars, and conflicts, and it saw the confrontation that led to the definition of the border between Florence and Lucca. This century too saw changes in rule and violent clashes, also driven by the many condottieri (captains of fortune) roaming the territory. But local armed groups and bands, emerging from the land itself, also played a role.
It was also the century in which the conflict became three-sided: Florence, Lucca, and – from the north – the Estensi of Ferrara, who would settle permanently in Garfagnana and its castles. And they were rightly called the three powers.
In the 1430s, the conflict engulfed the whole territory: in 1430, Pariana was occupied by the Florentines and again three years later, and it returned to Lucca along with the Vicariates of Valle Ariana and Valdilima in March of 1442. In the chaos of that war, the territory saw in action remarkable figures known from history such as Francesco Ferrucci and Maramaldo, condottieri of fortune.
And perhaps, precisely because of that century of chivalric figures, Pariana inspired Angelo Quilici to set the epic tale of a knight, Gonzello – to whom a street in today’s village is dedicated – in his novel Il Cavaliere Gonzello da Pariana (Historical Novel of the 15th Century).
The 16th century was a time of serious turmoil, in both political and social spheres (with phenomena of brigandage described by M. Berengo in his Nobili e Mercanti nella Lucca del Cinquecento), but also in the religious sphere, from which the greatest changes came: in 1517 Martin Luther posted his Theses in Mainz, initiating, with the Reformation, the split within the Catholic Church and, from the mid-century, the Church’s own reaction with the Counter-Reformation.
The Society of Jesus was the instrument of the Counter-Reformation, and it carried out a vast mission campaign in the mountains (which a prominent Jesuit, Silvestro Landini, called our Indies).
Pariana too – where the heretical Dominican Benedetto da Villa Basilica preached – was visited several times by an important Jesuit, Father Filippo Poggi, whose biography will be addressed in a dedicated section.
With the 17th and 18th centuries, and up until Napoleon’s arrival, the mountain lands experienced a decline in interest, and the villages – flourishing and very active in previous centuries – began to become those marginal lands that they turned into during the 19th century, and even more so after the great exodus following the Second World War in the 20th century.
Gruppo Donatori di Sangue Fratres di Pariana
Via Regina Margherita 13, Pariana, Villa Basilica (LU), 55019
CF: 9200234046
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