Ten years ago, in 2016, a group of volunteers traced a 108 kilometer ring through the woods of the central Apennines with paint, signs and stickers, paying the costs out of their own pocket. Today that route, the Cammino dei Briganti, connects 18 villages between Abruzzo and Lazio and in 2026 crosses the tenth anniversary finish line with a brand new sculpture and a changed stage, perfectly illustrated in the new guide.
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Luca Gianotti’s idea
The idea bears the signature of Luca Gianotti, a professional guide from Modena who has lived in Marsica for thirty years and who had previously already created the Spallanzani Path in the Reggio Emilia Apennines and the Via Cretese in Crete. The project was born from the bottom, with the voluntary work of Gianotti together with Fabiana Mapelli and Alberto Liberati, co-authors of the first paper guide, as the official page on the history of the path tells us.
A 108 kilometer ring between two regions
A circular route of 108 kilometres, seven stages, altitudes between 800 and 1300 metres, which winds between the Val di Varri, the Valle del Salto and the slopes of Monte Velino, following the traces of post-unification brigandage. Departure and arrival coincide in Sante Marie (AQ), where the Safe Conduct is collected, the pilgrim’s credential to be stamped at each stage.
The brigandage museum and the first two stages
Before setting off, it is worth a stop at the Museum of Brigandage and the Unification of Italy, set up in Palazzo Colelli in Sante Marie and inaugurated in 2008 after the restoration promoted by the Abruzzo Region and the Marsica 1 mountain community. The museum recounts the years between 1859 and 1866, including the capture on 8 December 1861 of the Catalan general José Borjes, who landed in Calabria on behalf of Francis II of Bourbon and surprised in Casale Mastroddi, on the outskirts of the town, as documented in the Abruzzo Region file.
The first stage, towards Santo Stefano, is short and serves to warm up the muscles: 5.6 kilometers among the beech forests, up to 1050 metres. The second, almost 14 kilometers between woods and canyons, crosses the old border between the Papal State and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and leads to Nesce, a hamlet of Pescorocchiano where archaeological remains of the equicoli, the “warriors of the mountains” mentioned by Virgil, were found.
The novelty of the tenth anniversary: towards Corvaro instead of Cartore
This is where the tenth anniversary introduces the most significant change. Until 2025 the path headed straight towards Cartore, with a two-night stop useful for the excursion to Lago della Duchessa: a problem, explains Gianotti, because Cartore has little receptivity and the prolonged stop interrupted the flow of walkers. From this year the route deviates towards Corvaro, the largest hamlet of Borgorose, where the Cicolano Archaeological Museum stands, inaugurated on 17 December 2016 and reopened to the public in July 2022 after a period of closure, with ten rooms dedicated to the finds of the Tumulus of Corvaro and the Equicole necropolises, as stated on the museum’s official website.
Duchess Lake, the most spectacular point
The climb to Lago della Duchessa, jewel of the Montagne della Duchessa Regional Nature Reserve established by Lazio regional law n. 70 of 7 June 1990, remains the most spectacular moment of the journey: the body of water of glacial and karst origin is located at 1788 meters above sea level, surrounded by the peaks of Monte Morrone and Murolungo, both over 2100 metres.
From Rosciolo to Sante Marie: the final stages
The subsequent stages pass through Rosciolo, the Romanesque church of Santa Maria in Valle Porclaneta, the archaeological site of Alba Fucens with its amphitheater, Magliano de’ Marsi and Tagliacozzo, before returning to Sante Marie through San Donato, Scanzano and Tubione.
The tenth anniversary sculpture
Right between San Donato and Scanzano, in one of the most panoramic points of the route, the winning sculpture of the competition announced by the Abruzzo Region as part of the 2025 path enhancement project will be placed: “The caravan on the path” by Cesare Pergola, a 70-year-old architect and artist from Molise who lives between Florence and San Paolo in Brazil. The work, made of perforated corten iron, depicts a bandit with a mule followed by two modern walkers and an eagle, fox, wolf, chamois and bear. The jury, made up of Luigi Nacci, Mariangela Mattia, Nando Nasi and Gianotti himself, chose the work unanimously among 15 competing projects, awarding a prize of 700 euros, as stated in the official press release of the Cammino dei Briganti.
The numbers of ten years of progress
On the numbers front, Gianotti told Gambero Rosso that in ten years over 25 thousand walkers have passed through, with peaks of over three thousand a year during the Covid period – when local tourism pushed many Italians to rediscover internal paths. It describes a real but partial economic impact: some B&Bs have opened thanks to the walkers, but it is not enough to reverse the trend – young people continue to move to Rome or to larger centers to work. According to his estimates, at least 10 thousand a year would be needed. “We are still far away,” he admits.
ISTAT data confirm the extent of the phenomenon that the path tries to combat. Sante Marie, the town of departure and arrival, has gone from 1,156 residents in 2017 to 1,053 today, according to calculations by tuttoitalia.it based on ISTAT – a drop of around 9% in less than a decade, in a municipality of just 40 square kilometers where the population density is already low. It is the same pattern that is repeated, with different intensities, in most of the 37 municipalities of Marsica, an area which according to the rural development plans of the Abruzzo Region has seen the depopulation rate worsen in the last decade, between 2012 and 2023, compared to the average values of the province and region. Against these numbers, a flow of 25 thousand walkers in ten years remains a small-scale intervention. But he is also the only one who, country after country, tries to leave something on the territory instead of simply crossing it.
