The ‘tamed’ mountains: from terrifying and uninhabited environments to places of the soul and religious spaces

Abstract

The survey, by using the methods of historical research, focuses on the transformation of mountains, which, from terrifying and uninhabited environments, gradually became among the most significant places of the soul and religious spaces. Resorting to historical, literary and archival sources, the study, of an interdisciplinary nature, aims to reconstruct a little-known aspect of Italian history, in particular of history of culture and ideas.

Mountains, which constitute a significant portion of Italy, were considered by the Ancients antithetical to human civilization. With Christianity a new image of mountains made its way, where, according to the Scriptures, some decisive episodes of the history of salvation had taken place. The hermits who wanted to dedicate themselves only to God began to take refuge in the mountains, but the ideological prejudice transmitted by classical authors remained fixed in the collective imagination and upland areas continued for centuries to be misunderstood and rarely visited.

An important turning point came with two religious orders, the Camaldolese and the Franciscans, who gave a fundamental contribution to the ‘taming’ of mountains. Thanks to Saint Romuald, in Camaldoli, on the Tuscan-Romagnolo Apennines, an experience was born that combined evangelization, forest management and interventions on the mountain territory. In their settlements the Camaldolese, while cultivating the fields, regulating the waters and taking care of the woods, at the same time promoted education, culture and work for the people who lived nearby. From Assisi and the mountains of Umbria began the revolution of Saint Francis, which involved men and women, animals, fields, fruits, flowers, forests, rocks: all like God’s creatures. Thus the Apennine mountains, the true backbone of the Italian peninsula, became increasingly popular open spaces, places of meeting and of spiritual and material life, based on a balanced and exemplary relationship between man and nature.