Caniparola

Caniparola is a frazione del comune di Fosdinovo, in province di Massa e Carrara.

It's in the southern part of the comune, at 39 metres above sea level. It's the lowest frazione in the comune and it's displaced along the first part of the provincial street that leads to Fosdinovo from Aurelia Street.

In Caniparola, until the 18th century, there was a tower, that was built at the age of the Bishops of Luni, on the which the Fosdinovo marquess Gabriele III Malaspina, ending his predecessor's project, Carlo Francesco Agostino Malaspina (who died here in 1722) built in 1724 his summer residence, the villa Malaspina. The plain on which this villa was founded was already exploited for agricultural use by Malaspina, who had built here a lot of farmhouses (they are said "Malaspinian Farmhouses"). In the mid-eighteenth century, between the end of Gabriele III's marquisate and the beginning of Carlo Emanuele Malaspina's one, some lignite benches were discovered for the mining of the so-called "Caniparola coal".

The toponym derives from the cultivation of the cannabis (canapa, in Italian) that was held in the area in the past.

During the second half of the 19th century, this frazione had an outstanding demographic increase (which is corresponded to a likewise increase of the built infrastructures and houses), so that, counted with the near localities (above all Borgetto-Melara), from 2001 onwards it began representing almost the half of the total population of the comune. The only frazione, on the other hand, has a population that would place as the first between the frazioni, but as second compared to Fosdinovo, the chief town. Today Caniparola is a residential place, although it still keeps vineyards and olive groves of its agricultural past.

Caniparola is seat of the Sant'Antonio da Padova Parish, in the diocese of Massa Carrara-Pontremoli within Aulla Vicariate. Patron Saint Day is 13 June.

Caniparola is seat of the detachment of the statal school "Don Florindo Bonomi", consisting of kinfergartens, elementary and secondary school. The chief seat is in Fosdinovo.

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Wikipedia