The territory of this municipality extends entirely to hilly and mountainous altitudes, being in fact in the Apuan Alps.
It has a minimum altitude of 107 m a.s.l. and a maximum altitude of 1,858 m a.s.l. of Monte Pania della Croce.
The territory is very steep and makes its urbanization very difficult, in fact it is almost completely wooded and rocky on the tops of some mountains such as the Pania and the Corchia. There are no large cultivated fields but only a few small and medium-sized vegetable gardens surrounding the hamlets. In the Arni – Campagrina area there are still some pastures of the ancient mountain pastures. Numerous springs are born here and various streams and torrents flow, all of which flow into the Vezza torrent which originates in the ancient village of Mulina, which caused the disastrous flood of 19 June 1996.
In the municipal area, in the Palagnana hamlet, there is the oldest thermo-pluviometric station in the mountain area of the Apuan Alps, opened in 1876.
The toponymy of the area recalls the mineral deposits known since ancient times. The town of Gallena takes its name from the silver galena extracted in the area. Two localities are called “argentiera”: in Sant’Anna and near Ruosina di Seravezza. In the territory of the municipality of Stazzema there are also the localities of Calcaferro and Buca della Vena where the iron ore was extracted.
Finally, there are some marble quarries in the municipality, harshly criticized by the No Cav movement.
The climate is mountainous but feels the mitigating influence of the nearby Ligurian Sea with sometimes snowy winters and cool, rainy summers given that the Apuan Alps are one of the rainiest places in Italy.
History
The Stazzemese area was inhabited since the Iron Age and then by the Etruscans, as evidenced by the findings of pre-Roman burials. The first mention of these populations is around 800 BC, in ancient Versilia, the so-called “Wasser” more precisely in Stazzema, at the time “Stathieme”. It was then inhabited by the Ligurian Apuans.
Sant’Anna is sadly famous for the massacre of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, a Nazi massacre that took place on 12 August 1944. There were 560 victims among Santannini, Versilians and people who came from different parts of Italy, who were there because they came on holiday or who had taken refuge there as in other mountain hamlets to escape the Germans.
Honours
Stazzema is among the cities decorated for military valor for the war of Liberation, awarded the gold medal for military valor on 28 February 1970 for the sacrifices of its populations (activities in the partisan struggle during the Second World War) and also for the valiant help of the parish priest Don Fiore Menguzzo (Gold Medal for Civil Valor) who sadly sacrificed himself to save the entire population of Mulina and the parish priest Don Innocenzo Lazzeri (Gold Medal for Civil Valor), who in turn wanted to sacrifice for the people of Sant’Anna.
