9-15 marzo 2011

Carrara (www.comune.carrara.ms.it), bordering the Liguria and Emilia Romagna
regions starts from the Marina stretching out towards the Apuan Alps which
represent the natural protection of Carrara. The Apuan Alps host the famous white
marble quarries, which are known all around the world since masterpieces of famous
artists such as Michelangelo and Canova were carved from Carrara marble. A great
example of the use of such marble is the Dome which has been entirely constructed with
the precious stone. Between the Fifteenth and the Nineteenth century Carrara, together
with Massa, gained the dukedom rank, and the combination between the two towns still
exists at province level. Carrara has been, and still is, the chief town of both the italian
and international anarchistic philosophy, and the Germinal archive/library which collects
the anarchist history as well as the history of the working-class movement is a perfect
testimony thereof. The name of Carrara shall leads back to marble, or even better to stone,
which is named Kair in the Celtic language. Carrara crosses three regions, and until 1870 it
belonged to the Emilia territory, to the last Tuscany town before entering the Liguria region.
From 1938 until the end of the war Fascists changed the name of the town into Apuania.
The Carrara dialect is a strange idiom, vaguely Emilian (or indeed a mix of Lombard and
Emilian dialect) which does not suffer Tuscan and Ligurian influences. In 1920 Carrara,
abounding of villas, Patrician palaces and fountains, has been struck by an
earthquake which partially changed its aspect. The “Rocca” and “Palazzo” structures
underwent a restoration which can still be appreciated nowadays and in which the
Renaissance architecture wonderfully integrates with the antique Medieval style. During the
last war period Carrara is a strategically important place (located on the so called “Gothic
line”) but also the object of atrocious reprisals, scouring and devastating bombardments
which caused hundred of civil victims and the almost total destruction of the lived in areas
and of the commercial and industrial zones.
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