Apennine Mountains

The Apennine Mountains, also called the Apennines, are a mountain range made up of several parallel chains that run roughly 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) down the length of peninsular Italy. In the northwest, they connect with the Ligurian Alps at Altare, and in the southwest, they end at Reggio di Calabria, a coastal city at the peninsula’s tip. Since 2000, Italy’s Environment Ministry, acting on advice from the Apennines Park of Europe Project, has considered the Apennines System to include the mountains of northern Sicily, bringing the total distance to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). This system forms an arc that encloses the eastern side of the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas. The mountains give their name to the Apennine Peninsula, which makes up most of Italy.

The range still has some intact ecosystems that have survived human activity. These areas contain some of the best-preserved forests and montane grasslands in Europe, now protected by national parks, and they support a high diversity of plants and animals. The Apennines are one of the last refuges for large European predators like the Italian wolf and the Marsican brown bear, which are extinct elsewhere in Central Europe. Most of the mountains are green and vegetated, but one side of the highest peak, Corno Grande, is partly covered by the Calderone glacier, the only glacier in the Apennines. The eastern slopes drop steeply to the Adriatic Sea, while the western slopes form foothills where most towns on the peninsula are built. The mountains are usually named after the province or provinces they lie in—for example, the Ligurian Apennines are in Liguria.

The most common explanation for the name “Apennines” is that it comes from the Celtic word *penn*, meaning “mountain” or “summit,” giving *A-penn-inus*, possibly assigned during Celtic rule in northern Italy in the 4th century BC or earlier. The name originally referred only to the northern Apennines. However, historical linguists have never agreed on a single derivation. Wilhelm Deecke noted that the etymology is uncertain but suggested it might come from the Ligurian-Celtic *Pen* or *Ben*, meaning “mountain peak.” Many place names seem to include *pen* (like Penarrig, Penbrynn, Pencoid) or *ben* (like Beanach, Benmore, Benabuird). In one theory, *Pen/Ben* is related to Old Irish *cenn*, “head,” but an original *kwen-* would be needed, which is not found in languages that have labio-velars. Windisch and Brugmann reconstructed Indo-European *kwi-*, also linking it to the Greek Pindus Mountains, but *kwen-* from *kwi-* is not explained by any rule. Some have connected the name to English *pin*, *pen*, and Latin *pinna* or *penna* (meaning “feather,” in the sense of a quill’s horn), but this view places the word’s origin in Latium, contradicting the northern-origin theory. None of these derivations is universally accepted.

The Apennine culture is a technological complex from central and southern Italy dating to the Middle Bronze Age (15th–14th centuries BC). In the mid-20th century, it was divided into Proto-, Early, Middle, and Late sub-phases, but today archaeologists use “Apennine” only for the ornamental pottery style of the later Middle Bronze Age (BM3). This phase is preceded by the Grotta Nuova facies in central Italy and the Protoapennine B facies in southern Italy, and it is followed by the Subapennine facies of the 13th century BC (Bronzo Recente). Apennine pottery is a burnished ware decorated with incised spirals, meanders, and geometric zones filled with dots or transverse dashes. It has been found on Ischia island alongside LHII and LHIII pottery, and on Lipari with LHIIIA pottery, which dates it to the Late Bronze Age as defined in Greece and the Aegean. The people of the Apennine culture were alpine cattle herders who grazed their animals in the meadows and groves of mountainous central Italy. They lived in small hamlets in defensible spots. When moving between summer pastures, they set up temporary camps or stayed in caves and rock shelters. Their range was not limited to the hills; their pottery has been found on the Capitoline Hill in Rome and on the islands mentioned above.

The Apennines are divided into three sectors: northern (Appennino settentrionale), central (Appennino centrale), and southern (Appennino meridionale). Several long hiking trails cross the range. The European walking route E1 comes from northern Europe and runs through the northern and central Apennines. The Grand Italian Trail starts in Trieste, winds through the Alpine arc, and then traverses the entire Apennine system, Sicily, and Sardinia.

The northern Apennines consist of three subchains: the Ligurian (Appennino ligure), Tuscan–Emilian (Appennino tosco-emiliano), and Umbrian Apennines (Appennino umbro). The Ligurian Apennines border the Ligurian Sea in the Gulf of Genoa, from about Savona below the upper Bormida River valley to about La Spezia (La Cisa pass) below the upper Magra River valley. The range follows the Gulf of Genoa, separating it from the upper Po Valley. The northwestern border follows the Bormida River to Acqui Terme, where the river continues northeast to Alessandria in the Po Valley, but the mountains bend away to the southeast. The upper Bormida can be reached by several roads heading inland at a right angle to the coast southwest of Savona, the main one being the Autostrada Torino-Savona. These roads ascend to the Bocchetta di Altare, sometimes called Colle di Cadibona, at 436 meters (1,430 feet), which marks the border between the Ligurian Alps along the coast to the west and the Ligurian Apennines. A bronze plaque fixed to a stone marks the top of the pass.