Lunigiana

The Lunigiana (pronounced [luniˈdʒaːna]) or Lunesana is a historical territory of Italy that today falls within the provinces of Massa Carrara, Tuscany, and La Spezia, Liguria.

Curiously, while evidence of both Roman and later Medieval settlements are ample, the wondrously appealing stele, late pre-historic and Bronze Age stone statues that have been found in large numbers in this part of Tuscany, remain the symbol of this ancient land.

Upon significant sections of this Roman road, the Lombards would later build the Via Francigena, for the control of which there were bloody and ferocious struggles among the local nobility, concerned with the maintenance of their dominion and fiefdoms, as well as between the states of Pisa and Lucca and, later still, between Florence, Milan and Genoa.

Then, in order to gain control of this strategic region, Luccans fought Pisans, Pisa struggled with Genoese, Milanese struck out against the Modense and Florentines made war on them all.

While the Genoese were able to gain control of La Spezia, Lerici, Sarzana and much of the littoral coast all the way from the Cinque Terre to ancient Luni itself, the Milanese took more northern parts of Lunigiana.