Читать книгу Trekking in the Apennines. The Grande Escursione Appenninica онлайн

8 страница из 33

Evidence has been unearthed of man’s presence since prehistoric times, some 7000 years ago. The northern Apennines were then the stronghold of the ancient Liguri or Ligurian people (as the colonising Romans found out to their detriment over the 150 years it took to get the fierce tribes to accept domination). We are probably indebted to them for the very name Apennines: the root ‘penn’ (for an isolated peak) is found throughout Italy. In another version Pennine was a divinity believed to reside on the inhospitable summits, while a further interpretation attributes the name to King Api, last of the Italic gods.

Over time well-trodden paths conveyed waves of passers-by, such as devotees on the Via Francigena which led from Canterbury to Rome. For the great medieval poet Dante Alighieri, the Apennines were a source of inspiration for ‘The Divine Comedy’; the same holds true for Petrarch and Boccaccio. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, revelling in sun-blessed Italy, was heading south towards Rome in October 1786, and wrote: ‘I find the Apennines a remarkable part of the world. Upon the great plain of the Po basin there follows a mountain range that rises from the depths, between two seas, to end the continent on the south…it is a curious web of mountain ridges facing each other.’