Volegno is a hamlet in the province of Lucca

Province of Lucca

The Province of Lucca is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lucca.It has an area of 1,773 km², and a total population of 372,244...

, Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, central Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, administratively a frazione

Frazione

A frazione , in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other administrative divisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere...

of the comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

of Stazzema

Stazzema

Stazzema is a comune in the Province of Lucca in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 80 km northwest of Florence and about 25 km northwest of Lucca.-Geography:...

. Located at 450 m over the sea level in the Alpi Apuane

Alpi Apuane

The Alpi Apuane are a mountain range in northern Tuscany, Italy, part of the Apennine Mountains. They are included between the valleys of the Serchio and Magra rivers, and, to north-west, the Garfagnana and Lunigiana...

 Regional Park, it has some 50 inhabitants.

Volegno is home to a church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which has some 16th century paintings. The hamlet's economy has always been essentially based on the extraction of the so-called Pietra di Volegno or Cipollino stone

Cipollino marble

Cipollino marble was a variety of marble used by the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose Latin term for it was "marmor carystium" . It was quarried in several locations on the south-west coast of the island of Euboea in Greece, between the modern-day cities of Styra and Karystos...

, which ceased in the 20th century. Current activities include production of chestnut

Chestnut

Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...

 and tourism.

Volegno is also renowned for an astronomical events occurring each June 22, during which the rising sun can be seen into a natural hole-shaped formation in the nearby Monte Forato

Monte Forato

Monte Forato is a mountain in the Alpi Apuane, in Tuscany, central Italy.It is formed by two peaks of similar altitude, connected by a natural arch which has given the group its name . The hole, nearly circular in shape, has a height of c. 12 meters, while the arch itself is some 8 m thick...

(which means "Holed Mountain" in Italian).