Monte Vettore

Did You Know?

• Below the summit of Vettore lies a small glacial lake in a small enclosed valley between Redeemer Peak.
• The southwestern side of the Sibillini massif, including the Vettore peak, is in Sibillini Mountains National Park.

Geology

Monte Vettore is a limestone peak formed mainly during the Jurassic period, with rocks from the Umbria-Marche sequence. Its fossils are mostly ammonites and gastropods. The mountain is the highest part of the Sibillini range’s overthrust, which was active in the Miocene. In the Quaternary, after the Apennines rose, glaciers carved the northern slopes, while normal faults on the west created high plateaus like the Piani di Castelluccio. Ongoing stretching of the crust is visible in the Cordone del Vettore fault scarp, which moved again during the 2016–17 central Italy earthquakes.

History

The reddish cliffs of Monte Vettore were considered the crown of Regina Sibilla. A less devout legend placed her in an underground paradise near Norcia, reached through a cave. A magical lake fed by that cavern’s water made anyone who stayed over a year immortal and ageless.

In popular culture

In Il Guerrin Meschino by Andrea da Barberino, the protagonist Guerrino seeks out the enchantress Alcina in her cavern in the central Italian mountains, guided by a speaking serpent named Macco. She shows him delights and horrors where sinners are transformed into animals, and sin is the only path to knowledge of his parents. Ortelius' 16th-century atlas Cartographia Neerlandica includes details about this Apennine Sybil. Locally, the Sibilla was considered a beneficent fata whose retinue would descend from the mountain to teach village girls spinning and weaving, and to dance the saltarello with young men. If the retinue failed to return by sunrise, they would become mere mortals. On one occasion, the faterelle, delayed by dancing, scrambled up the Vettore as dawn approached; their goatlike feet crushed the rock to fragments. They reached their grotto just before dawn, and the talus slope is still called the Path of the Fata.