| In the Northern Apennines there are many historical villages and
castles, which are of great value and represent a cultural heritage of great
importance. Their presence within a territory greatly affected by landslide
hazards creates, in many circumstances, the need to solve problems of land
management and to act for the preservation of historical monuments.
This paper describe an interesting landslide, failed during the night of
28 February 2004, that involved the village of Rossena: the failure
damaged the village (Fig. 1), the road and the fields down to the stream
but, fortunately, the castle just upslope the village was not involved at
all.
The 10th century massive castle of Rossena stands on the top of a cliff
at about 500 m a.s.l., on the border between the provinces of Parma and
Reggio Emilia, and it is surrounded by a small ancient village. The castle
of Rossena is the best preserved stronghold of the Longobard times, enlarged
and reinforced in the tenth century and partially rebuilt by Bonifacio, the
father of Matilda of Canossa (the Vice-Queen of Italy and probably the most
important woman in the Middle Ages) as a defensive structure guarding the
Enza Valley. In addition, at Conossa, very close to Rossena, there was the
meeting between Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor of Germany Henry IV, during
the historical event known as "fight for the investitures". For these
reasons, the area of Rossena is one of the most relevant from a historical
point of view in the entire western part of the Emilia Romagna Region and it
also has a high value as a geosite (Coratza et al., 2004).
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