La Valle delle Stele

Others emerge from the darkness, motionless stone figures. To the eyes of those reading this work or visiting the Pontremoli Museum, they would seem to be accidents in perception. The stelae of Lunigiana, obscure figures in a story connected, without the help of reason, to the universal quest for the great mysteries of existence, life, death, the creative force of birth, the ability to put an end to an existence, are collected in this volume. Through evocative images created by Mauro Davoli at the Piagnaro Castle, the book shows them in page after page, while leaving their fascination and mystery intact. The stele statues, which belong to prehistory, are monumental, monolithic, impassive, and leave few clues to those who observe them without knowing them: partially revealing their history are archaeologists Fabio Martini and Lucia Sarti, specialists on the subject, whose essays try to answer the numerous questions raised by such enigmatic works. The sites where the stelae were found, in the Lunigiana forests, are also mysterious and fascinating: photographed by Walter Massari, the text is by Giorgio Antei, a furious excavation into the memory of those places, tracing the unpredictable events that led to the foundation of museum in the castle of Piagnaro. Texts by Giorgio Antei, Fabio Martini, Lucia Sarti. Foreword by Angelo Ghiretti. Photographs by Mauro Davoli and Walter Massari.