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| Arriving to Montecristo, Tuscan Archipelago |
Today, Jordi Santanyí and his friends have visited Montecristo, one of the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago well-known by the novel of Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo.
Jordi and The Grandma love Literature and this visit to Montecristo was a must and a dream come true. They have asked for a special permission to visit the island.
During the trip from Pianosa to Montecristo, The Grandma has read this famous novel of Alexandre Dumas. It has been a wonderful experience because today is Saint George, the most impressive day in Catalonia where people bring roses and books to celebrate culture and love. Today is also the anniversary od¡f the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, two brilliant writers of the universal literature.
Montecristo, formerly Oglasa in Ancient Greek Ὠγλάσσα, is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea and part of the Tuscan Archipelago. Administratively it belongs to the municipality of Portoferraio in the province of Livorno. The island has an area of 10.39 km square, it is approximately 4.1 km wide at its widest point and is 3.4 km long; the coasts are steep, and extend for 16 km. The island is a state nature reserve and forms part of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park.
Much of the island's fame is derived from the fact that it provides the setting for part of the novel The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.
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| The Count of Monte Cristo |
The history of the island begins with the Iron Age. The Etruscans exploited the forests of oak needed to fuel the bloomeries of the mainland where the iron ore of Elba's mines was melted.
The Greeks gave Montecristo its oldest known name, Oglasa or Ocrasia, after the yellowish colour of the rocks. The Romans, however, knew it under the name Mons Jovis, and erected an altar to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus on the highest mountain, of which some traces remain. During the imperial age, the Romans opened some quarries to extract granite, perhaps used in the construction of villas on the islands of Giglio, Elba, and Giannutri.
Around the middle of the fifth century AD, the caves of the island became home to several hermits escaping from the Vandals of Genseric, the most important of whom was St. Mamilian. They christened the island Mons Christi, from which the modern name is derived. Cristo and Christo are both literally a given name, it is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χρήστος (Chrēstos) or Χρίστος (Chrístos). Monte is literally mount.
At the beginning of the seventh century, Pope Gregory the Great submitted them to the monastic rule of the Benedictines. In this period, the Monastery of St. Mamilian was founded; as a result of donations to the Church, its wealth became legendary, and a chapel was built in the St. Mamiliano Cave where the saint had lived in the fifth century. In 1216, the monks joined the order of the Camaldolese. Thanks to the donations of several noble families, the monastery became powerful and rich, and this gave rise to the legend of treasure hidden on the island.
More information: Visit Tuscany
The island was once a possession of the Republic of Pisa, but was later acquired by the Principality of Piombino. In 1553, Ottoman pirate Dragut, heading for Elba, stormed the monastery, enslaved the monks, and decreed its end. After that, the island was uninhabited. In the second half of the sixteenth century, together with most of the Tuscan Archipelago, it became part of the Stato dei Presidi, a client Spanish state.
The island was annexed to the French Empire under Napoleon; after his fall, it became the possession of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The first attempts to colonise Monte Cristo, at the time owned by Charles Cambiagi, were made in 1840 by two German hermits, Augustin Eulhardt and Joseph Keim, who eventually abandoned the attempt.
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| Jordi Santanyí visits the Monasterio di Montecristo |
In 1843, other people arrived with the intention of cultivating the island. In 1846, some Genoese made a similar effort.
In 1852, a rich Englishman named George Watson-Taylor bought Montecristo and transformed Cala Maestra into a garden, planting eucalyptus and many exotic plants, among them the Asiatic Ailanthus altissima, an invasive species which now infests the island. The few modern buildings of Montecristo, such as the Royal Villa, date from this period. The island was then purchased by the Italian Government on 3 June 1869 for the sum of £100,000.
Montecristo had previously been plundered in 1860 by Italian exiles living in London, who had come to Italy to join up with the Camicie rosse, but were shipwrecked on the island. Faced with the huge sum of money claimed by the owner to repair the damage, the government thought it better to buy the island, which was still uninhabited.
After other attempts at colonisation in 1878, the Italian government founded a penal colony there, a branch of that in Pianosa.
More information: Tuscany Charming
In 1889 Montecristo was given to Marquess Carlo Ginori, who restored the Villa and transformed the island into a hunting ground.
In 1896, Montecristo was the honeymoon destination of Victor Emmanuel III of Savoy, at that time crown prince, and Elena of Montenegro, and after 1899 it became a royal hunting ground for Victor Emmanuel's exclusive use.
During the Second World War the island, important because of its position between Italy and occupied Corsica, was garrisoned by the Italian army.
In the late 1940s, the Italian Navy Intelligence agency temporarily took over the island for use as a training base for covert agents.
Montecristo was used as a Navy training base only from September to November, 1948, when the trainees were transferred to Italy's west coast.
After several episodes of vandalism and speculation attempts, the nature reserve was established in 1971.
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| Joseph de Ca'th Lon visits Montecristo, Tuscany |
The conditions that restricted the establishment of human settlements on Montecristo have favoured the preservation of its flora and fauna. Animals and plants once found throughout the Mediterranean still live on the island.
Of particular interest are the giant heather formations covering the valley floors and several thousand-year-old oaks that manage to survive at the highest altitudes. Also interesting are the Montecristo viper, Vipera aspis hugyi, a subspecies also present in southern Italy, and today considered introduced by humans, and Discoglossus sardus, an amphibian found only in a couple of islands in Tuscany and Sardinia. An endemic subspecies of lizard, Podarcis muralis calabresiae, thrives on the island.
More information: Info Elba
Montecristo is also a resting place for thousands of migratory birds and is home to large colonies of seabirds, particularly relevant the yelkouan shearwater, as of 2012 critically endangered on the island. The island also hosts the only Italian population of wild goats. The sea environment is quite rich: there are seagrass meadows, sea anemones, sea fans, corals and moonfishes.
Until the 1970s the Mediterranean monk seal was also to be found, a critically endangered species that has become extremely rare in Italian waters. Endemic species include the plant Limonium Montis-christi, the invertebrate Oxychilus oglasicola, snail of Monte Cristo, also present on the islet of Scola, near Pianosa, and the reptile Podarcis muralis calabresiae.
Nowadays the island has only two permanent human inhabitants, both nature reserve keepers. In addition, agents of the State Forestry Corps from Follonica live there in alternating shifts of two weeks at a time.
Today Montecristo belongs to the Tuscan Archipelago National Park. Visitors face a number of restrictions. It is not possible to stay overnight, and swimming, and surfing are prohibited within 1 kilometer of the coast. It is possible to cruise within 4.8 km of the coast, but fishing is not allowed. Access by sea is possible only at Cala Maestra, where the seabed is sandy, and with an approach course perpendicular to the coast; it is possible to dock at the pier or tie up against a buoy, but dropping anchor is not allowed; there is also a small heliport for emergencies. To visit the island, one must apply for access at the Forestry Corps in Follonica.
Visitors with basic authorization must stay at Cala Maestra, and priority is given to scientific expeditions, associations, and schools.
More information: CNBC
Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales
whose gates are guarded by dragons:
we must fight in order to conquer it.
Alexandre Dumas
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