The town of Pontremoli, the “City of the Books”, is in the province of Massa Carrara at 136 m. of altitude and it has a population of about 8,000 inhabitants. Inside, it is possible to visit the castle of Pignaro, the XVIII-century Palazzo Pavesi and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.
Pontremoli is known as the “City of the Books” because it has been housing a book market since 1458, at the beginning of industrial printing. The festivals of Pontremoli immediately became an important point of reference for the trade of books. The activity of ambulant booksellers, who spread their goods in Northern Italy and also in numerous European places, originated from the Upper Lunigiana.
Pontremoli was cited in a travel diary of Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, dating to the last years of the X century. Just like many other pilgrims, this clergyman happened to arrive in this village by crossing the Francigena way, the most important road for those who went to Rome from Northern Europe. Pontremoli, that is a centre dedicated to the accommodation activities, had a strategic role from a political point of view that earned it many advantages in comparison to the bordering towns.
This is not a case if many emperors were interested in its autonomy that was reiterated both by Frederick Barbarossa and by Frederick II. Therefore, Pontremoli had always fought against the Malaspina differently from the other villages in the Lunigiana and it was an ally of big cities in Emilia Romagna, such as Parma and Piacenza, who were interested to Pontremoli’s role of “key of access” to the Apennines.
Since the XIV century, Pontremoli had become the target of the main Italian seigniories and its autonomy as a town was definitively compromised. The Rossi of Parma, the Scaligeri of Verona, the Visconti and the Sforza of Milan, as well as the French and the Spanish followed one another in ruling the village. All of them did not hesitate to let the city organize according to its autonomous statutes, even if they interfered many times, provided they controlled it.
At the half of the XVII century, Pontremoli finally could enter a period of political stability because it was annexed to the Tuscan Grand Duchy and because it was used as a point of reference for the trade between Northern Europe and the port of Livorno founded by the Medici. In this period, the village lost part of its medieval appearance with the rising of villas and residential palaces and of the Teatro della Rosa, while the churches were restructured and decorated in the Baroque style.
The Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine declared Pontremoli “Città Nobile” in 1778 and Pius IV invested it with the title of Episcopal seat in 1787. After the French occupation and the Restoration, the town was included in the state of the Lorraine for a short time and then it was annexed to the Dukedom of Parma, from which it freed itself with the Risorgimento uprisings of 1859-1860 that gave life to the Unity of Italy.