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 The
"Modenese" road was built by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo to
link the Tuscan territory and more importantly the port in Leghorn with
the Habsburg states in the north, so as to avoid the Church State. It was
without doubt one of the most important events during the sovereignty of
the Lorena family.With a cost at the time of two million old Italian liras, it was built to allow the movement of carts and merchandise throughout the year or, as Emanuele Repetti wrote in 1833, it was to be "a road for carts and postal transportation until the borders of the dukedom of Modena (E. Repetti, Dictionary of Tuscan Geography History Phisycs, Florence 1833-1845).  It was therefore necessary to overcome difficult and uneven terrain, to keep the road within certain limits of gradients, to build "strong and magnificent" bridges, adding "milestones, and comfortable roadside hotels and shelters for the horses." The art works on the bridge over the Sestaione torrents were particularly notable, with two elliptical spans resting on a central pillar, or the bridge on the torrent Lima, with only one arch, but also the numerous fountains, which were to help the men and animals on their way. The works, started in 1766, continued for more than ten years and the main obstacles to overcome were found in the last stretch that after the stream Lima leads to the pass, and for which it was necessary to create many hairpin bends. The new road, also named Giardini-Ximenes, after the two engineers from Tuscany and Modena, resulted in the birth of the town of Abetone, near the forest of Boscolungo (literally Longwood). |
 THE
PYRAMIDS |
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 To
underline the importance of this new development, in 1778, two stone pyramids
were erected facing each other and marking the climax of the road. Full
of symbolic references and cross-references to the culture and architectural
treatises of the late 1700s, the pyramids represent the completion of the
entire border (boundary stones and defenses); monumental and emblematic
finishing point of a complex infrastructure.
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| THE
OLD MOUNTAIN PASS |
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 Before
the construction of the road the passage from Tuscany to Modena and to the
so-called "Lombardia" was very difficult during winter. The main
routes were all along the left banks of the stream Lima, where major settlements
of the high mountain terrain could be found: from Lizzano to Cutigliano,
from Melo to Rivoretta, to name but a few.The most traveled passes were those which went from Rivoreta to the border called Serrabassa and the one to the East of the "Croce dell'Alpe" from Lizzano to Cutigliano, which went up to the pass now known as Croce Arcana and reached Fanano Modenese.
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| BORDER
CONTROL |
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 A
few years after the construction of the new road the government of the Lorena
family started the huge operation of reorganizing the Tuscan border control
system, which had started a few decades before and tended to promote commerce
and favour the development of the area, on the basis of the liberal principles
which inspired Pietro Leopoldo's political reform.The subject of the tolls, to quote Antonio Serristori, one of the main collaborators of the Grand Duke, was not meant just as "tax but mostly a gauge to regulate the cash flow of a well-governed state". The tendency was to move the borders to the limits, in places most suited to watch over land, creating new borders and abolishing those with the Grand Dukedom, reserving those of Florence, Siena, Pisa, Pistoia and Leghorn", as mentioned by Pietro Leopoldo himself. Once the road of Ximenes had become the main one on the Mountain of Pistoia, the existing border control building was extended with an inn on one side, horse stables, a vicarage, a church and graveyard on the other. The building, with sturdy walls, was on floors with cellars, a wide porch and even a hen house for the border officer, who had his own private quarters on the first floor, consisting of 6 rooms. On the second floor, built in 1788, served as "lofts with slab flooring, suitable for different uses". |
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| THE
BOUNDARY STONES |
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The differing
mentalities of the two commissioners of the road are mirrored in the Latin
inscriptions on each pyramid.
The
need for tighter control of the territory linked to the political reform
and the modernizing enterprise of the Tuscan government in the second
half of the 18th century brought, amongst other things, to the general
recognition of all the borders of the land of the Grand Duke, which lasted
until the 80s. The "termination" obviously also regarded the
borders of the Mountains of Pistoia with the State if the Este family
of Modena and the papal legation of Bologna. The entire boundary was first
put down on paper, with a large production of maps and plans checked by
the engineers of both the states, then marked out on the land, by means
of numbered cylinders placed close to one another, which could be traced
on the paper maps. Made of stone and firmly placed in the ground, they
have been for the most part conserved well, particularly in the stretches
most sheltered and not exposed to erosive elements of the weather. Many
of these can still be seen in their original place and can be followed
easily, in particular those along the ridge track "CAI" number
00.
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