By Camilla Sarra. Cover image courtesy Libreria Sopra la Penna.
Italy’s Smallest Bookshop is Rewriting What it Means to Read
There are places where books are not simply read, they are breathed in. Where culture isn’t performed, but embraced. Where reading becomes a daily act of care, of belonging, even of resistance. One of these rare places is called Lucignana, a tiny hilltop village in the Garfagnana region of northern Tuscany. And there, in the silent heart of a valley that seems untouched by time, stands a bookshop unlike any other in Italy: Libreria Sopra la Penna.
It is more a home than a store. More an idea than a business. Most of all, it is the dream-come-true of a woman who has built, through books, not just a library but a living, breathing community.
Lucignana and the Bookshop on the Hill: Where Silence Speaks
Lucignana has fewer than 200 residents. In winter, silence is its most precious asset. The stone houses huddle close as if to guard against the cold. The cobbled alleyways echo with footsteps and memory. In summer, the village wakes gently, like an old book reopened after years. But there’s no nostalgia here—only authenticity.
Some may call it a “forgotten Italy,” but perhaps this is the truest Italy of all. It doesn’t need grand events to tell its stories; the stories already live there—in the walls, in the gardens, in the eyes of those who remain, and those who, increasingly, arrive only to stay.
Libreria Sopra la Penna: A Bookshop, a Refuge, a Place of the Soul
The bookshop was founded by Alba Donati, poet and literary curator and her husband Pierpaolo Orlando, professor and writer, who in 2019 returned to her family’s house with a radical yet simple vision: to open a bookshop in a mountain village, far from cities and literary circuits. Few believed it would last. Instead, it became a national literary landmark, thanks also to the affectionate word-of-mouth of those who sensed they had discovered something rare.
Libreria Sopra la Penna sits at the end of a small uphill road. Its presence is subtle: a door, a pergola, a blooming garden. Inside, warm wood, soft light, and books chosen not for market trends but with care, attention, and love. It’s not a shop that overwhelms you with endless choice. It’s a curated sanctuary. Poetry, fiction, essays, illustrated books, children’s stories, independent publishers—every title is there for a reason. Every shelf feels like a conversation.
But more than anything, it is the atmosphere that captures you. Here, you can sit and chat, sip a cup of tea, listen to a reading, or write a letter. Sometimes the resident cat stretches out among the books, a character in its own right, wise and welcoming.
Little Lucy: A Festival “This Small” with Deep Roots
Since 2020, a literary festival has grown around this physical and symbolic space. It’s called Little Lucy, a name inspired by the Little Italys around the world—echoes of Lucignana’s own emigrant past. But today, instead of leaving, people return. They return as readers, writers, seekers of meaning. Little Lucy is “a literary festival this small,” as its tagline goes—but in truth, it’s expansive, layered, and deeply transformative.
The 2025 edition, taking place untilSeptember 13, is devoted to a theme as powerful as it is fragile: happiness. Curated by Alba Donati and Pierpaolo Orlando, and organized by Fenysia – School of Cultural Languages, this fifth edition features 15 author events, two residential workshops, readings under the trees, a spiritual walk to the hermitage of Sant’Ansano, creative labs for children, and the reading of real letters sent to “Libreria sopra la Penna, 55025 Lucignana”—letters full of longing, loss, and desire.
This year’s featured guests include Dacia Maraini, who will receive the“Writing on the Horizon of the Hill” International Prize; Rossana Campo, Paolo Di Paolo, Nadia Terranova, Romana Petri, Nicoletta Verna, and Marcello Fois. Beloved author Laura Imai Messina also returns with a new workshop and a reflective walk, during which the summer’s collected letters will be opened and read aloud in the peace of the forest.
Yet the true protagonist of the festival is the place itself. Because in Lucignana, you don’t simply attend an event—you enter into a relationship. You become part of something larger, slower, deeper: a living, imperfect, beautifully human community.
The Bookshop and Festival Redefining Cultural Experience in Tuscany
What makes both the festival and the bookshop so powerful is that neither shouts. There is no chase for visibility or spectacle. There is, instead, an ethic of presence. Of listening. Of beauty. Of time. In a world where culture is too often consumed like entertainment, Sopra la Penna offers something rare: a space where books are still sacred, and readers are not customers—they are guests.
The hill, as the festival’s curators often say, is humble. It doesn’t demand. It welcomes. And that is exactly what happens here: you arrive out of curiosity and leave with a quiet longing to return. Because perhaps true happiness is simply this: to find a place that resembles who we are—or who we hope to become.
How Lucignana’s Bookshop Is Quietly Expanding Its Community
This year also marks the expansion of the bookshop, with a new space being restored just meters from the original cottage. The community continues to grow—volunteers, readers, and friends arrive from across Italy to help tend this miracle. They are the silent caretakers of a living dream—one you can’t fully explain, but must experience to understand.
So yes, Lucignana might seem magical. But its magic is not made of fantasy. It is made of presence. Of care. Of a deep love for books, turned into a daily, civil, and necessary act.
In a country that often forgets its rural villages, this little hilltop tells a different story. A story born from a bookshop—but that, in truth, speaks to all of us.
