Virgoletta

The walk in the village, entirely surrounded by walls more than ten meters high, starts from the stone door facing Villafranca. Along the way you can admire numerous "talking portals", typical of the Apennine villages such as Tavernelle and Camporaghena , with sandstone architraves and decorated with bas-reliefs of auspicious symbols or work tools such as scissors, probably made to indicate the presence of a tailor's shop. 

You soon reach the small square with the church dedicated to Saints Gervasio and Protasio. The building, dating back to 1585, overlaps with a much older structure that still exists under the current church. Inside there is a splendid seventeenth-century marble altar which preserves the relics of four saints celebrated every year on the second Sunday of May which, according to documents, arrived in Virgoletta from Rome in 1666. Behind the altar of the church, a beautiful marble altarpiece of fifteenth-century representing the Virgin sitting on a throne with the child, between saints Gervasio and Protasio, martyrs dedicatees of the parish, attributed to the Master of Virgoletta. 
 

Leaving the church, Via Calzolari leads to the Malaspina Castle, of which today it is possible to visit the porticoed courtyard. To welcome you, a marble shield with a lion and two branches of Spino Secco, the family coat of arms. Once entered the loggia, a double staircase leads to the two wings of the castle: on one side, the noble rooms which date back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on the other, in the direction of the Apennines and the village of Bagnone, the defense tower from which you can enjoy a wide view over the entire valley. 

Today, a small passage that the inhabitants call " riulin ", ravelin, allows you to skirt the tower and the defensive system facing the mountains and leave the town in the direction of the small sanctuary of the Madonna della Neve.

At the end of the walk in the village, it's time to cool off at the Virgoletta Fountains, sources of running water that flows from fascinating marble faces and a stopping point for all pilgrims who travel along Via Francigena passing by this little Lunigiana jewel.