From the United Statesto the State Archives of Massa, the letter from Alfonso I d’Este to Ludovico Ariosto has returned to the place where it belongs. Dated January 31, 1524, the letter was officially returned yesterday during a ceremony in the Archive’s Conference Room, attended by representatives of the institutions that contributed to its recovery and a group of local students. The document serves as significant evidence of Ariosto’s work as governor of the Garfagnana. Alongside his fame as a poet and authorof *Orlando Furioso*, it reveals the profile of a man engaged in public administration, called upon to address the daily challenges of governing the region.
In the letter, Alfonso I d’Este addresses issues related to public order, banditry, the administration of Garfagnana, and requests for clemency. The document’s return to Massa makes it possible to piece together an important part of Garfagnana’s history, reuniting the letter with the documentary heritage preserved in the State Archives.
Having been removed from the state’s collection in the past, the letter was identified at an auction in 1973 and subsequently donated to the Morgan Library in New York. Its recovery and return to Italy were made possible thanks to a comprehensive effort by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, conducted in close collaboration with U.S. authorities.
Archival research also played a crucial role. Reconstructing the document’s provenance made it possible to confirm that it belonged to the cultural heritage of the Garfagnana region. In particular, the identification was made possible thanks to the 19th-century inventory of the General Archive of the Subprefecture of Garfagnana, supplemented by a review of sources and the studies of Giovanni Sforza, the long-time director of the State Archives of Massa.
The recovery had already been presented on April 30 in Rome, at the La Marmora Barracks, during a ceremony dedicated to the return of various cultural artifacts to Italy. Among those attending the event were Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli, U.S. Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta, General Massimo Mennitti, General Antonio Petti, and Director General of Archives Antonio Tarasco.
The official handover was attended by the director of the State Archives of Massa, Maria Russo; Member of Parliament Alessandro Amorese, a member of the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies; the Prefect of Massa-Carrara, Gaetano Cupello; Brigadier General Antonio Petti; and Sabrina Mingarelli, director of Service II of the General Directorate of Archives at the Ministry of Culture. Francesca Nepori, director of the State Archives of La Spezia, also collaborated on the recovery efforts; she had followed the various stages of the case during her previous tenure as head of the State Archives of Massa. The historical and documentary aspects of the letter were explored in depth by Chiara De Cesare, a researcher at La Sapienza University in Rome and an expert on Ariosto’s correspondence, and by Olga Raffo, former director of the State Archives of Massa and a scholar of local history.
The ceremony concluded with a reading of the letter’s original text by students from the theater workshop at the “P. Rossi” Classical High School in Massa, who brought to life the words written nearly five hundred years ago.
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| The letter from Alfonso I d’Este to Ariosto, returned to the State Archives of Massa from the United States |
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