Pascoliana Festival at Passo delle Forbici

The Pascoliana Festival: A literary tradition since 1932

The Pascoliana Festival at Passo delle Forbici is one of Italy's oldest and most evocative literary events. It takes place every year on the first Sunday of August at Passo delle Forbici, at an altitude of 1518 meters, in the municipality of Castiglione di Garfagnana, in the province of Lucca. The mountain pass marks the border between the Tuscan Garfagnana and the Reggio Emilia Apennines in Emilia-Romagna: a symbolic point that ideally unites the land of the poet's birth with the one he cherished in his maturity.

The origin: Pascoli's dream and the Madonna della Neve

The festival was born in 1932, when friends and scholars of Giovanni Pascoli decided to turn a dream described by the poet into a painting and place it in the small Madonna della Neve chapel at Passo delle Forbici. That gesture aimed to spiritually unite the two Apennine regions dear to Pascoli, in a mountain setting where poetry, nature, and memory merge. For nearly a century, every summer, the festival has renewed this encounter between literature and landscape.

A day of poetry, culture, and mountain life

The event, promoted by the Municipality of Castiglione di Garfagnana with the support of the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca and numerous local cultural institutions, offers a program that weaves together various moments:

• Poetry readings of Giovanni Pascoli's works and a commemoration at Casone di Profecchia
• Meetings and conferences with Pascoli scholars, often focusing on the poet's relationship with figures like Alfredo Caselli and Giacomo Puccini
• Holy Mass at the Madonna della Neve chapel at Passo delle Forbici
• Convivial lunch at Ristorante Il Casone, featuring traditional Garfagnana dishes
• Guided hikes in the Apennine mountains, including the famous "Giro del Diavolo"

Historical memory and local identity

Passo delle Forbici is not just a place associated with Pascoli: on August 2, 1944, it was the site of a tragic partisan event, and the festival also serves as an occasion to honor that memory. The day often concludes in San Pellegrino in Alpe, one of the highest villages in the Apennines, with tributes and moments of cultural reflection.

Castiglione di Garfagnana, a fortified Apennine village

A medieval village surrounded by still-intact walls, Castiglione di Garfagnana preserves one of the most evocative identities of the Tuscan Apennines. The Pascoliana Festival tells its deepest story: the bond between the mountain community, great Italian poetry, and a landscape of ridges, beech forests, and silence that inspired Giovanni Pascoli.