Monte Corno - I Thought I Was Flying

Synopsis

On the 19th of August 1573 Francesco de Marchi, with a small expedition, climbed the impervious and rocky peak of the Corno Grande, the highest mountain of the italian Appennin range, accomplishing an epic feat for his time: reaching a peak out of curiosity, climbing what he considered the highest mountain in Italy. He wrote his Chronicle anticipating by 213 years the ascent of Mont Blanc accomplished by Balmat and Paccard on 8 August 1786, considered the first ascent in the history of mountaineering.450 years after the feat, the film recounts the climb, narrated by Francesco De Marchi's own words, by means of a detailed fiction, with spectacular images of the climb among the calcareous rocks of the Corno Grande. Beside the fiction there is a documentary part in which experts of the enterprise, such as the historians Stefano Ardito and Roberto Mantovani, the mountaineer Hervè Barmasse, the geologist Mario Tozzi, will talk to us , in the very places of the ascent to the summit of the Gran Sasso , about the historical figure of De Marchi and about the themes of the Chronicle: the ascent and its difficulties, the measurement of the peak and the geography of the place, the state of the Calderone Glacier (the southeast one in Europe), the trade of wool and hides between L’Aquila and Teramo, passing through Campo Imperatore. The true protagonist is the Gran Sasso d'Italia, the highest mountain massif in the Apennines.