Castles of Aulla, palaces and mansions

The fortress consists of beautiful military architecture, and is surrounded by a wonderful park, and a long botanical path. In the central building of the fortress, since 1997, a museum has been inaugurated, consisting of four rooms, offering a complete and innovative description of the Lunigian landscape, focusing the attention of the visitor on the relationship between the human activities of agro-forest-pastoral civilization and natural resources.

The Castle of Bibola is the result of several buildings, identifiable in four distinct phases: the first phase, constructive, dates back to the 13th-13th century. The general structure of the castle can be traced back to the second construction phase dating back to the fourteenth century. The third phase dates back to the building of the tower in the southeast corner, with a diameter of about 6 meters. Some well-preserved architectural elements, dating back to the fourth construction phase, can be seen on the southeast front of the curtain wall, where an opening opens dominated by a six termination - eighteenth-century.

The Castle of Pallerone took on a certain consistency since the fifteenth century. Fortifications, erected in the 16th century to protect the settlement, remain few traces of the walls and only one tower. In the tower is set up one of the oldest mechanical cribs in Italy, of 1935, a masterpiece of folk art, based on an elaborate electromechanical and hydraulic system.

The Castle of Olivola, which dominated from the top of a hill the entire hilly system between Tavarone and Aulella, already belonged to the Malaspina and formed in a fief in the fourteenth century, preserves some traces nowadays of the imposing construction among the ruins of its mighty walls, as well as two large circular towers.

The castle of Bigliolo was one of the fortifications of the great Episcopal Court of Lunigiana, which suffered from various events related to wars in the thirteenth century such as those between the Bishop and the Malaspina in Val by Aulellà, who passed the castle into the hands of the Marquises of Filattiera. In 1412 the Biglioli Dynasty became extinct and in 1418 Bigliolo passed under the rule of Florence. Bigliolo was attacked in 1523 by Giovanni de' Medici. In 1568, the sons of Lazarus I divided the marquisate into two parts.