2021-05-30

2021-05-30

Cà de Monti

The village consists of two main buildings and a tiny church, whose presence could support that definition. Standing on the edge of a mountain between Tredozio and Monte Busca, Past century toponymy refers to it as “I Monti”, which means “Mounts”. “Cà” is a contraction of “Casa” - “Home”, and it’s been added in recent times to the previous toponymy. With more than 8 bedrooms, 2 kitchens and numerous indoor and outdoor spaces, while being surrounded only by the forest, it should be easy to imagine that I couldn’t ask for more. Mr. Billi told me that the first stone was put in place in the 10th century, but there are no written proofs. Not far away from the road that’s represented a neuralgic infrastructure for the salt trade between the Adriatic coast and Florence, Cà de Monti stands on a rope 700 meters*1 above the sea level, upon a small, almost untouched valley that faces the Foreste Casentinesi*2. The place reveals its inner hospitality by offering huge indoor and outdoor common spaces, privileged by its strategic position which meets forgotten mule tracks and marked trails and wild areas. The valley, steeply descending at the foot of the village, becomes harsh towards the side of the Foreste Casentinesi. Here, numerous rural settlements can be found, whose ruins interact with the surrounding landscape and woods, standing in a liminal space between a not-sodistant inhabited stage and the (dis)integration Cà de Monti Map of the Tredozio’s area. Source: Unknown 26 towards natural forces. These settlements, whose same stones were used in recent times to renew the structure of Cà de Monti, couldn’t better represent the never-reversed migratory flows - departed from rural, internal areas in Italy, which “contributed to the disappearance of “cultural landscapes”” starting from the second half of the XX century*3. A smooth road sinuously climbs up the small valley, connecting the two places across 5 kilometres of abandoned cultivated fields and woods. The green hills around Tredozio generously leave space along the road in favour of rugged slopes, constellated by silent trees and hidden, stone houses.