The Francesco Petrarca Literary Park is born in the Euganean Hills

The Francesco Petrarca and the Euganean Hills Literary Park is born, included in the Euganean Hills Regional Park, in the area between the ancient baths of Abano and Montegrotto and Arquà Petrarca, in the green heart of the Veneto region.

Petrarch was the forerunner of a wide array of poets and writers, not only Italians, who chose these places to spend part of their existence there or stayed only the time to find well-being and serenity. The emotions felt by the poets, as they took shape in their written words, are shared today with anyone who wants to immerse themselves in the discovery of this area. The invitation is to do so by walking along the new “Via Poetica,” dotted with fifty-seven plaques bearing as many statements or reflections by those poets and writers who lingered or lived there.

Petrarch, to whom the new Literary Park is dedicated, was probably not the first of the poets to discover and love these Hills. Important centers stood here as early as the Bronze Age, and baths were already popular in Roman times, as the poet Claudianus records, between the fourth and fifth centuries AD. But he is certainly the most famous.

Of Arquà he made his home of choice, singing it in the Canzoniere. Immediately after his death in 1374, an all-secular pilgrimage to his home and tomb began, which, in the Romantic era, was acquired among the destinations of the Grand Tour. From here passed Byron, Foscolo, Margaret Symonds to D’Annunzio and Zanzotto.

Este’s walls provide the backdrop for one of Mary Shelley’s novels, but already centuries earlier, at the height of the Renaissance, Alvise Cornaro found inspiration here for his Treatise on the Sober Life. Ludovico Ariosto mentions Este inOrlando Furioso, while Lord Byron rented a villa here as a buen retiro for Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who describes the Euganean Hills as “Islands in bloom.”

Galzignano’s thermal baths, hermitages, the Camaldolese monastery of Monte Rua, Villa Barbarigo and its esoteric park have especially attracted poets and writers from Italy and the Veneto region, from Lazzaro Bonamico, the great Renaissance humanist who loved to live out his literary leisure here, to the poetess Aglaia Anassillide, and Giovanni Comisso, among many others.

Teolo and the Benedictine Abbey of Praglia captivated Fogazzaro, Diego Valeri, Giuseppe Barbieri, Vittorio Zambon and Zanzotto, who divided his heart between the Euganean Hills and his native Treviso hills. A little further on, Torreglia, sung about by Nicolò Tommaseo and Concetto Marchesi, along with Barbieri and Dino Buzzati, who was fascinated by the Villa dei Vescovi, which, in his words, “is one of the first examples of classical architecture in the Veneto. Palladio had not yet revealed himself. It stands atop a small hill and its two proud loggias stare, motionless, at the singular panorama that is likely to be unique in the world.”

Words of admiration for the Hills unite many other authors, from Giacomo Zanella to Giorgio Caproni, Attilio Bertolucci, Giorgio Bassani, Goffredo Parise.

How to travel through them? Leaving the car, it is possible to rediscover the atmospheres, flavors, and scents that have bewitched generations of poets. At your disposal is the Network of Literary Paths to walk in the Euganean Hills Regional Park: dozens of routes, of varying difficulty, all punctuated by the words of poets. There is also the Literary Itinerary by bike on the Euganean Hills Cycle Ring, 63 km within everyone’s reach.

The Literary Park “Francesco Petrarca and the Euganean Hills” is coordinated by the cultural association of the same name based in Arquà Petrarca, which has among its aims the enhancement of the material and immaterial heritage and of the landscape, thanks to activities of dissemination, in-depth study and promotion of literary culture and is part of the international network of Literary Parks® based in Rome. It is supported by collaboration with the 17 municipalities of the Euganean Hills and Spas, with the tourist destination and shares projects with various other entities in the area.

For info visit www.parcopetrarca.com

Image: Francesco Petrarca and Euganean Hills Literary Park. Photo by Gianluca Canello

The Francesco Petrarca Literary Park is born in the Euganean Hills

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