THE EIGHTH SPHERE - The Millennial Mine

Discovered by chance in 1986 in the locality “Il Forcellino” near the Piani dei Resinelli, above
Lecco, the Eighth Sphere boasted for several years the record of the oldest mine in Lombardy dated with
certainty. Dating back to 1200 and therefore built in the Middle Ages, the mine was exploited for
the extraction of argentiferous galena, from which silver was obtained, a precious metal as it was destined
mainly to the minting of coins. The dating of this artefact was obtained subsequently
of radiocarbon analysis on some wood fragments collected in the innermost areas and sent
at the laboratories of the “British Museum” in London.
The entrance is located in a rather dangerous place, a narrow fracture half hidden at the base
of a rocky wall that overhangs for hundreds of meters over the town of Lecco, and the
speleologists who were the first to cross its threshold, after a millennium of abandonment, had to
overcome a complicated network of tunnels and tunnels. Some of them appeared curiously
closed by piles of stones, it was later understood that it was the work of ancient miners convinced that, with the
closing the now sterile tunnels, the regrowth of the mineralized vein could be promoted.
The Eighth Sphere has a planimetric development of 320 meters with a height difference of 87, and at the highest point
deep inside it there is a small body of water.
Inside the tunnels among the stones the explorers also found some ancient ones
iron tips worn from use for rock excavation, tools preserved in the Museum
Archaeological site of Palazzo Belgiojoso in Lecco.
The documentary tells the story of this site and other more recent mining realities
scattered across that territory, enriching the work with a series of interviews and testimonies
released by scholars and experts on the subject to tell this fascinating story dating back to
almost a thousand years ago.