Cave of the Wild Man

From the Apuan Excursions website. Locally Buca dell’Omo Salvatico. It is located in the municipality of Stazzema, ten minutes from the Del Freo refuge, along path 128 for Puntato and Col di Favilla, on the left of the Canale delle Verghe. The entrance is located at 1150 meters, the depth is 281 meters and the total development is about 1400. The cave has been known to the valley people since time immemorial and they had created scary legends about it. The first descent, of a few tens of meters, dates back to 1912, a subsequent one in 1923 went further, but only in the period 1929-1930 did an expedition of the GSF (Florentine speleological group) go through the entire cave. The entrance is an imposing sinkhole in which a small stream of water that descends from the Corchia is lost, the cave consists of a series of tunnels and wells. The name derives from a very widespread figure in local folklore and in general in the world. Hairy, monstrous, wild and cave dweller, homo selvaticus is a myth that was born with humanity: it is the ancestral past that cannot be forgotten. It is looked at on the one hand with nostalgia for what has been lost and on the other with contempt and a sense of superiority for the civilization we think we have acquired. Therefore he is considered with a mixture of fear and admiration and he himself acquires both positive and negative values in the collective imagination.
Local legends say he taught shepherds how to use milk to make cheese and ricotta, but then annoyed by their further requests if he went back to his caves. However, other versions considered him as a dangerous being who roamed the woods from which he came out to kidnap girls and was dedicated to bloody and pagan rites.

Characteristic cave to which the legend of the wild man is linked, a silent place immersed in a wonderful beech forest