Today Andes is the name given to what is supposed to have been old Pietole, while the present-day Pietole would be the “new” one, which took shape between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It is therefore a complicated matter, also for obvious reasons of tourist interest (assuming that place names have, in themselves, any significant power to direct tourist flows…).
Perhaps more important than names are the concrete cultural, tourist and environmental offerings made available to curious visitors eager to experience immersion in settings rich in history and tradition.
In this sense, the proposal of a Virgilian literary (and nature) park, formalised last April with an official inauguration in the presence of the mayor of Borgo Virgilio, Francesco Aporti, promises very well, and is certainly worth a journey even from distant lands, to enjoy the true enchantment of the Po Valley river lands and their delicate, yet also magical, balance between the animal, plant and human worlds (the latter often invasive in recent decades).
It is, in fact, an experiential tour that the Virgilian Park offers visitors. As Stefano Mangoni, curator of the museum section on behalf of the Municipality of Borgo Virgilio and the Fondazione Virgilio, has pointed out, the potential of the place is twofold. “We have a natural aspect, which has been enhanced because the structure lies right in the Mincio Park, and a historical and cultural aspect. The latter has been crystallised in the two restored and museum-ised spaces, which house the museum dedicated to the fort as a structure and another space centred on the figure of Virgil.”
For the section devoted to the Napoleonic fort, material found within the structure and donated material has been collected. The space dedicated to Virgil aims to bring together all the historical and archaeological collections of the Municipality of Borgo Virgilio. Foremost among them is the coin collection left to the Municipality by the lawyer Prati: a unique testimony, thanks to its coins from the Roman period, to the existence of the Virgilian village of Andes.
A large section is then devoted, as befits museums today, to multimedia offerings. Thanks to these, through immersive projections and headsets, visitors can relive, on the one hand, how the fort worked at the height of its military activity and, on the other, the era in which Virgil lived, through his works and the places where he lived.
Andes/Pietole is today a lowland wood: a green space of over 30 hectares bordering the Vallazza site of Community importance, where nature surrounds the military structure of the Fort and the waters of the Mincio caress the fortress.
In the green area, reachable by footpaths, cycle routes and river landing stages, information and signage guide the exploration to discover flora, fauna and insects: among the protagonists of the secret life of the wood are the bees – visible in transparent hives – essential to the whole ecosystem, human beings included.
Here it is the Virgil of the Eclogues and above all of the Georgics who helps us discover the area, amid natural wonders and literary echoes, distant but ever present. One can actually set out in search of the trees and shrubs mentioned and described by Virgil in his works: in this way the poet’s relevance today – that is, his almost innate relationship with nature, its manifestations, its rhythms, its poetry – stands out even better, perhaps, than in a simple reading.
It is well known that for the ancients Nature, as an entity capable of rewarding human beings with its fruits but also of punishing them with catastrophic events, demands the constant pursuit of a balance between living beings and the environment. For Virgil too, as already for Lucretius, human intervention in the environment, always necessary for survival (consider the importance of the theme of human agricultural labour in the Georgics), cannot however dispense with an approach that today we would call “ecosystemic”, one that takes account of the many delicate underlying balances.
There is therefore no doubt that the message undoubtedly contained in the Georgics as well as in the Eclogues (but also in the Aeneid: consider, for example, the people of Halesus, companion of Agamemnon and sworn enemy of the Trojans, who are notable for their intense agricultural activity, especially winegrowing. Vertunt felicia Baccho / Massica qui rastris) – namely that of living in harmony with nature and enjoying its fruits while respecting it – has every chance, in the experience of the Park, of becoming visible and tangible, as authentic and effective as ever.
For more information:
https://www.parchiletterari.com/parchi/virgilio-pascoli-campagne-e-condottieri-a-pietole-/eventi.php
