Casoli is a hilltop village located in the municipality of Camaiore, at the foot of the Apuan Alps. It is known as the ’village of Sgraffiti‘: an open-air museum featuring beautiful frescoes created on the external walls of houses using the Italian art technique ’Sgraffiti’, the artistic or decorative technique of scratching through a coating on a hard surface to reveal parts of an underlying layer contrasted in colour. The first was made several decades ago by the Sicilian painter and sculptor Rosario Murabito; this tradition continues today through the exhibition Sgraffiti a Casoli. 

The war and the Resistance left deep scars on the area. In a green space below Via Trescoli stands the house of Domenico Dell’Aquila, known among anti-fascists from Viareggio as the base called ’Cericcia’. Thanks to its hilltop position and proximity to Camaiore and the plain, it became one of the strategic bases of the first resistance groups in the area. 

Domenico Dell’Aquila played an important role in the resistance. He was among the first to take action against the Fascist occupation and the resurgence of Fascism after the Armistice of 8 September 1943. He was initially active in the partisan formation ’Luigi Mulargia’, and later in ’Marcello Garosi‘ as a squad leader. On 4 September 1944, he died together with his comrade Giuseppe Vecoli when an explosive trap was triggered at the entrance of a mountain hut on Monte Prana, installed by another partisan formation attempting to hinder the German retreat toward the Gothic Line. 

Anti-partisan operations were extremely violent throughout Versilia during July and August 1944. During one of these operations, on 5 August 1944, three members of the Pardini family (Gian Domenico, Modesto, and Ivana) were captured in Casoli by an SS patrol. They were seized while grazing animals in the surrounding mountains. After interrogation, they were accused of supporting and assisting the partisans and were executed. 

A monument, composed of several plaques dedicated to the Alpini corps, to those fallen in the First World War, and to those fallen in the Second World War, was installed in the village on 11 April 1961.