The Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona e Campigna National Park was established in 1993 to protect a large area spanning Tuscany and Romagna.

State management of these forests dates back to the first half of the 19th century when, at the behest of Grand Duke Leopold II, the Bohemian engineer Carlo Siemoni began a comprehensive reforestation plan for the “Royal Forests of the Casentinese Alps.”

The Park features narrow, sunken valleys on the Romagna side and a gentler conformation on the Tuscan side.

The Tuscan side extends from a small peak in the Mugello region across the entire Casentino region, up to Monte Penna, where the Franciscan Sanctuary of La Verna stands. The ancient forest complex of the Casentinesi State Forests is the heart of the current National Park.

The Casentinesi Forests National Park boasts remarkable scenic beauty that has inspired saints, painters, writers, and artists over the centuries. Among them stands out Dante Alighieri, who, impressed by the Acquacheta waterfall, wanted to include it in a canto of the Inferno.

The park contains two extraordinarily important and fascinating places from a spiritual and historical point of view: the Camaldoli Hermitage, founded in 1012 by Saint Romuald, who chose this splendid place surrounded by thick fir forests as a place of retreat and meditation, recognizing the care of the forest as such importance that it became part of the order’s rule.

The Sanctuary of La Verna, built on the mountain that Saint Francis received as a gift in 1213 to make it a place of hermitage, which dominates impressive cliffs and rocky crags on one side and, On the other hand, it is protected by the centuries-old forest of fir and beech trees, preserved intact for almost eight centuries by the Franciscans. The presence of these communities undoubtedly enriches the park, making it unique in the national landscape and physically testifying to how man can live in harmony with nature.