Virgoletta, a medieval village set on the hill that runs along the Bagnone stream, in the municipality of Villafranca in Lunigiana, retains a history linked to Malaspina. Originally of the Corbellari, it passed to the Malaspina dello Spino Secco and temporarily to the Genoese Campofregoso in the fifteenth century.
The village, surrounded by walls of over ten meters, reveals along the main street "talking portals", decorated with bas-reliefs with auspicious symbols and work tools. The church dedicated to Saints Gervasio and Protasio, of 1585, preserves a seventeenth-century altar with relics of four saints, which arrived in Virgoletta from Rome in 1666. A fifteenth-century altarpiece by the Master of Virgoletta completes the interior.
Via Calzolari, leads to the Malaspina Castle, with a family crest and an open courtyard. The wings of the castle date back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the defense tower offers a panoramic view of the valley. A "riulin", a small portico passage or rivellino, allows you to skirt the tower and continue towards the mountains to the sanctuary of the Madonna della Neve.
The exploration of the village ends at the Fountains of Virgoletta, sources of running water with marble faces, a resting place for pilgrims of the Via Francigena.
