It all begins with my great-uncle, the Reverend Hugo Alsworthy.

Sent to Papua New Guinea to preach to the Orokaiva, headhunters and keepers of ancient secrets, a savage people adorned with necklaces made of human skulls and bright bird-of-paradise feathers.

Hugo Alsworthy was fearless. Intelligent. Stubborn.

He remembered that a young English heir had disappeared there months earlier, chasing rumors of lost temples and hidden jewels.

He was found, or at least his head was found, hanging atop a totem pole.

The news made the headlines: exciting, mysterious, dangerous.

My great-uncle escaped this fate thanks to his medical training.

He cured the tribal ruler’s daughter of a foot infection with a dose of penicillin.

To the tribe, he had become a god.

To him, only duty.

Restless, he returned to London.

During a health vacation in Italy, wandering, after the usual visits to the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, among the dusty shelves of the Vatican Library, where he had been invited by an old cleric friend, he discovered a manuscript on the Chiesaccia of Fornovolasco, in the middle of a Bible first translated into Italian by a scholar from Lucca named Diodati, during the Renaissance.

And there, listeners, the true story began, included in the supposedly lost Fornovolasco codex.

The manuscript slept for centuries in the shadow of the Apuan Alps.

The stones remember. The wind remembers.

When words are spoken aloud, the mountains draw closer.

The ancient spirits stir from their long slumber.

They open invisible eyes.

They breathe.

Insects trace arcs in the air, illuminating peaks and valleys.

The shadows behind me ripple, forming towers and cliffs alive with memories.

The audience leans in, mesmerized, suspended on the edge of time, between the real and the invisible.

Fornovolasco is a charming village at the entrance to the Turrite di Gallicano valley.
It has a history tied to the iron and steel industry, having been founded by master blacksmiths from Brescia.
The name, in fact, means “Volasco Furnace,” a common surname in that northern Italian town.

There are several splendid walks starting from Fornovolasco and descending from the summit of the queen of the Apuan Alps, Pania della Croce.

Fornovolasco remains hidden.

The valley folds in on itself.

Cliffs like sentinels scan the horizon.

Gray houses cling to the shade.

An arched bridge crosses a stream murmuring ancient litanies.

The air carries whispers of iron, of fire, of lost lives.

I speak their names.

The shadows on the walls writhe: kneeling friars, then grotesque, contorted forms.

Insects gather near the fire, pulsating to the rhythm of my heart, illuminating these ghostly apparitions.

Beyond the bridge, the path climbs beneath the branches of chestnut trees.

Sunlight filters like green fire.

There it is: the Chiesaccia, the Evil Church.

The portal gapes like the mouth of a beast.

Blackened walls, twisted ivy.

Bats sleep among the hollows of the altars, guardians of secrets inaccessible to man.

The chronicles of Lucca testify that this place was known and feared as early as the 13th century.
In the Libelli extimi Lucanae Diocesis of 1260, the Chiesaccia appears among the humblest sanctuaries that owed allegiance to the Parish of Santa Felicita in Valdicastello, once guarded by the Augustinian order.

Yet, the road that crossed their threshold was no ordinary pilgrimage route.

When darkness fell, even the owls held their breath.

The Chiesaccia served primarily to welcome and refresh travelers who, for business or pilgrimage, headed from Garfagnana toward Versilia and the sea through the Foce di Petrosciana.

It is said, however, that these friars were not as pious and merciful as they would have us believe.
In fact, travelers who stopped to receive hospitality at this monastery were never seen again.

The reason?
During the night, the friars indulged in cannibalism and ate the poor wayfarers alive, perhaps with a little salt and pepper.

During these “special” evening banquets, the monastery bells rang out throughout the valley.

Hearing the nocturnal sound of these deadly bells, the local faithful knew that the friars had feasted that night too.

Another version links the derogatory term “Chiesaccia” to the fact that the monks, if not outright killed them, frightened and preyed on the wayfarers and pilgrims who passed along the Petrosciana trail.

What can one say? Legends don’t arise by chance.

The bells tolled alone, slow and somber.

Those who heard them trembled and whispered: “The friars are feasting again.”

Some said it was fantasy; others that the friars were bandits disguised as saints.

But the mountains remember.

Stones remember.

Shadows remember.