When he arrived there in 1522, Ludovico Ariosto must have thought he had fallen from grace at the Este court. The appointment as governor of Garfagnana, province of the Duchy of Ferrara, rather resembled an exile in a remote and wild land, made of impenetrable woods, "land of wolves and brigands", as he wrote in the “ Satires “. Five centuries later the Garfagnana has lost neither its rough beauty nor its riches, which are measured in the vastness of its forests and in the centuries-old chestnut trees, in the character of its people, witty and hospitable, in the stone villages and in the parish churches lost on the slopes. The mountain is that of the Appennino Tosco-Emiliano , in the stretch where the ridge was cut by the medieval paths, which connected Lucca to Modena; but also that of the Alpi Apuane, with the white scars of the marble quarries, the high altitude pastures and lakes that send the green of the woods to the sky. A universe of extreme, sweet and harsh landscapes, faithful to an ancient vocation of authenticity. Perhaps this is why Giovanni Pascoli chose to live here, in search of his "nest" in a fold of the Appennino Toscano , so hidden as to be almost secret.