Provincia di Massa-Carrara
Garfagnana and Lunigiana are separate civil fonds
Neither of this archive's two civil fonds matches the modern province. Atti dello stato civile della Garfagnana and Atti dello stato civile della Lunigiana, both 1852-1865, are separate territorial holdings from a time when this ground belonged to three different states. The Garfagnana is now largely in Lucca. The levy is stranger still: one fond is not yet inventoried, and the later classes are at Florence.
Your roots
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Comuni in Provincia di Massa-Carrara
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Massa holds
Two civil fonds, both 1852-1865, and neither matches the modern province.
Atti dello stato civile della Garfagnana, 1852-1865. Atti dello stato civile della Lunigiana, 1852-1865. They are separate territorial holdings, and the Garfagnana's comuni are now mostly in the province of Lucca.
The levy holdings reflect three pre-unification states.
The aggregated archive of the Consiglio di reclutamento della Lunigiana parmense, classes 1828-1839, seated at Pontremoli, from the period when Pontremoli belonged to the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza.
The Consiglio di leva di Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, classes 1829-1839.
The levy lists of the Principato estense di Massa, classes 1829-1839 — in a separate fond not yet inventoried. That is the archive's own statement, and it means access to this series is possible but not straightforward.
Post-unification, the Ufficio di leva di Massa holds males born in the comuni of the circondari of Massa and Pontremoli, classes 1843-1923. The levy lists of later classes are held at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze.
Ruoli matricolari are in the Distretto militare di Massa Carrara: fascicoli matricolari, classes 1843-1920, and ruoli matricolari, classes 1872-1920.
Digitisation is recorded as Completa, though that does not extend to the uninventoried Massa levy fond.
Continue your research
Two fonds that follow historic states, not the modern province. Later levy classes are at Florence.
Archivio di Stato di Massa on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its two territorial fonds and the uninventoried Massa levy.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
Three states, two fonds, one modern province
Work out which historic state the comune belonged to, because that decides the fond.
Lunigiana — the Magra valley around Pontremoli, Aulla, Fivizzano — was divided between the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, Modena and Tuscany. Pontremoli was Parmense.
Garfagnana — the Serchio valley — was Estense, governed from Modena, and most of it is now in the province of Lucca, not here.
Massa and Carrara themselves were the Principato estense di Massa, Cybo-Malaspina and then Este.
The two civil fonds, both 1852-1865, follow those territories rather than the modern boundary. A Garfagnina family will find its civil acts here even though its comune is Lucchese today; a Carrarese family will not find them in either fond, because Massa's own material is elsewhere in the archive's structure.
The levy divides the same way and carries two explicit warnings: the Principato estense di Massa levy lists are in a fond not yet inventoried, and post-unification classes later than 1923 are at Florence.
The province
Marble, three duchies and a province from 1859
The Province of Massa e Carrara was instituted on 27 December 1859 by decree of Luigi Carlo Farini; the hyphenated form came later. It joined territories that had never been governed together.
The defining industry is marble. The Apuan quarries above Carrara have been worked since Roman times — the Pantheon, Trajan's column and much of Renaissance Rome came out of them — and the trade organised the whole society: quarrymen, lizzatori who ran the blocks down the mountain on greased sledges, carters, sawyers, shippers at Marina di Carrara. It was dangerous work with a strong collective culture, and Carrara became one of the most significant anarchist centres in Europe from the 1880s, a tradition that persisted into the twentieth century.
The Lunigiana is castle country, the Magra corridor between Liguria, Tuscany and Emilia, fought over by Malaspina branches, Genoa, Florence and the duchies. Its villages were divided among jurisdictions in a patchwork that changed repeatedly, which is why its records are scattered.
The Apuan Alps behind the coast are steep marble and chestnut country, and the Gothic Line ran through them in 1944-45. The massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema, just over the Lucca line, and reprisals in the Lunigiana emptied villages; several were never reoccupied.
Emigration was early and distinctive: Carrarese quarrymen and Lunigianesi went to Barre, Vermont and the quarry towns of the United States, taking the trade with them.
Culture & traditions
Quarrymen, castles and chestnut
The province has three cultures and they barely overlap.
Carrara is a marble town and behaves like a mining community: a skilled, mobile, politically organised workforce with its own vocabulary and its own risks. The lizzatura, the controlled descent of blocks on wooden sledges, was abandoned only in the twentieth century. Its emigration was occupational — men went where marble and granite were cut, and the stone towns of New England and the Midwest have Carrarese founding families.
The Lunigiana is a landscape of small castles and chestnut. The stele statues, carved anthropomorphic figures from the third millennium BC, are its oldest identity, and the chestnut economy — marocca, chestnut bread, drying huts — supported the valley villages into the twentieth century. Pontremoli sits on the Via Francigena and lived by pilgrims and trade over the Cisa pass.
The Garfagnana across the mountains is Estense in history and shares the Serchio with Lucca; Ariosto governed it for the Este in the 1520s and wrote about how hard it was.
The coast at Massa and Marina was a later growth, shipping marble and then bathing.
Food carries the province's name: lardo di Colonnata, cured in marble basins in a quarry village, and the testaroli of the Lunigiana.
Province established
1859
Comuni covered
17
Historic names
Lunigiana parmense · Principato estense di Massa · Garfagnana estense · Circondario di Pontremoli · Ducato di Modena
Languages & dialects
Italian · Lunigianese · Carrarino · Garfagnino · Ligurian and Emilian influence along the Magra
Traditions
marble quarrying and the lizzatura · lardo di Colonnata · Lunigiana stele statues and testaroli · chestnut economy of the valleys · Carrarese anarchism
The Province of Massa-Carrara states that the Province of Massa e Carrara was instituted on 27 December 1859 by decree of Luigi Carlo Farini. The later hyphenated name does not change that institutional lineage.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Massa
Identify the historic state first: Parmense, Estense or Toscano. It predicts which fond and which levy council holds the family, and it is not readable from a modern map.
If the comune is in the Garfagnana and now in Lucca, the 1852-1865 civil acts are still here.
For levy classes after 1923, write to Florence, not to Massa.
If you need the Principato estense di Massa levy lists, expect the fond to be uninventoried and say so in advance — a described request will get further than a citation.
Name the comune, the period and the pre-unification state when you write.
What to see
The Carrara quarries — worked since Roman times, and the lizzatura descent routes.
Colonnata — the quarry village, and lardo cured in marble basins.
The Lunigiana castles — Malaspina strongholds along the Magra.
The stele statues — anthropomorphic carvings from the third millennium BC, at Pontremoli.
Pontremoli — the Cisa pass town on the Via Francigena.
The Apuan Alps — marble and chestnut country, and the Gothic Line of 1944-45.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Massa-Carrara represented?
Requests are how we decide what comes next — every one is read, and the places people ask for are the places that get made.