Lecco: Second appointment with the Author Walks in the footsteps of Plinii, Leonardo da Vinci, Nietzsche, Percy and Mary Shelley
Saturday 22 July in Varenna a route from Villa Monastero to Fiumelatte
Lecco: Second appointment with the Author Walks in the footsteps of Plinii, Leonardo da Vinci, Nietzsche, Percy and Mary Shelley.
The initiative is included among project activities Enhancement of the identity of the historic garden of Villa Monastero financed with the Pnrr M1C3 Investment 2.3 Programs to enhance the identity of places: historic parks and gardens.
The event will start at 10.00 on Saturday 22 July a Villa Monastery, meeting in the loggia after the ticket office. There The end of the walk is scheduled for 13.00pm on the bridge that crosses the Fiumelatte, where there is a sign indicating it as the shortest in Italy. To be precise, it is second in brevity behind the Aril which flows into Lake Garda (175 meters against 250), but it is certainly the one that has most sparked the imagination of writers, poets and scientists due to its seasonality and the system of karst caves from which it flows. “Corresponding to the Bellagio castle is the Fiumelaccio, which falls from a height of more than 100 arms from the vein from which it originates, plumb into the lake, with an inestimable din and noise. This vein only pours in August and September“, Leonardo da Vinci noted in the “Codex Atlanticus” around 1493.
Il route of approximately 2,5 kilometres, will take place half in the park of Villa Monastero and the other half along a stretch of the Patriarchs Greenway, a pedestrian itinerary that connects the hamlets of Varenna whose inhabitants were once called the "patriarchitts", because in medieval times they were part of the Patriarchate of Aquileia and not of the Archdiocese of Milano.
Five moments of narration and readings are planned along the route. In the botanical garden of Villa Monastero there will be songs by Paolo Giovio and Sigismondo Boldoni, who with their learned and pioneering guides founded the myth of the Lario as the "Homeland of the two Plinii" in the 16th-17th centuries and witnessed the transformation of the ancient Cistercian monastery into a villa of the Mornico family. There will be no shortage of readings fromNaturalis Historia"of Pliny the Elder, in the rose garden (Pliny discussed the medical virtues of roses in detail) and near the statue of “Clemence of Tito"of Come on (his encyclopedia is dedicated to Tito).
A intermediate stop will be held in Varenna cemetery, said "the English cemetery” for the numerous children of Albion who at the time of the Grand Tour chose to rest forever in this highly evocative place, nestled between lake and mountain. Here yes they will read two passages by Mary Shelley (from the book “A stroll on Lake Como, published in 2020 by Sentiero dei Sogni) and her husband Percy (from the poem “Rosalind and Helen”) which propose two reflections on life and death inspired by as many journeys on the Lario. In the hamlet of Fiumelatte, space will also be given to the suggestions left by the numerous authors who decided to place one of the villas of Pliny the Younger in this area (the Comedy, according to some located where Villa Capuana is today and according to others a little further south on the border between Varenna and Lierna) and to Friedrich Nietzsche who in a letter indicated Villa Capuana as a sought-after summer destination for his group of friends.
The route is led by Pietro Berra, journalist and writer, the readings are entrusted to the actress Lorena Mantovanelli.
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