Journey to this enchanting ancient village
The original settlement of San Terenzo Monti consisted of a “Castle” belonging to the fief of the powerful Malaspina family of the flowery branch, it was under the protection of the Florentine Republic after 1418. On the death of Spinetta II (1477) it was part of the Captaincy Fiorentino di Fivizzano as a “Castle” with its own statute. The current inhabited area consists of the castle and the underlying Borgo.
The Borgo of San Terenzo Monti, where La Dimora del Borgo Antico stands, rises along the road that connects Fosdinovo, then Sarzana, and the Bardine Valley, hence the continental hinterland, a transit place that has always been linked to the plains and the sea. Its strategic position on the territory leads to think of its commercial and defensive importance, both towards the opposite valleys, such as the Rosaro valley, the Magra valley and the mountains behind it with the Apuan Alps chain.
The legend, which is believed to date back to the eighth century, of the martyrdom of San Terenzo, from which the name of the village derives, is perhaps the most interesting proof of this strategic vocation.
The legend begins with the killing of the saint “A fervent Christian from Scotland, who arrived at the Lavenza river, now Carrione, in the Carrarese area, was killed with a dagger at the hands of some of his servants; the Bishop of Luni decided to erect a church dedicated to the martyred Saint, in the place where, after having loaded the body on a cart pulled by oxen, these, without any guide, would have stopped for death.
This cart, which left with the sacred remains from the Carrara area, stopped on a hill near the Bardine stream in a property of the Bishop, where the oxen, after drinking from a puddle, died. That was the chosen place ”.