The Guida dei monti d'Italia (in English ''Guidebook to the Italian mountains'') is a series of guidebooks published in Italy by the

Club Alpino Italiano The Club Alpino Italiano is the senior Italian alpine club which stages climbing competitions, operates alpine huts, marks and maintains paths, and is active in protecting the Alpine environment. It was founded in Turin in 1863 by the then finan ...

(''CAI'') along with

Touring Club Italiano The Touring Club Italiano (TCI) (Italian Touring Club or Touring Club of Italy) is the major Italian national tourist organization. The Touring Club Ciclistico Italiano (TCCI) was founded on 8 November 1894 by a group of bicyclists to promote the ...

(''TCI'') in two periods, the first from 1908 to 1932 and the second from 1934 to 2013.

History

Drafting and writing the guidebooks involved a much editing and many on-site inspections, and the series soon became a reference work both for amateurs and professional alpinists. The serie as a whole was considered ''monumental'', and the novelist

Dino Buzzati Dino Buzzati-Traverso (; 14 October 1906 – 28 January 1972) was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for '' Corriere della Sera''. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel ''The Tartar St ...

defined it an ''arduous and remarkable achievement''. The "Guida dei monti d'Italia" is the ''best example'' in Italy of a ''systematic alpinistic guidebook'' or, in other words, a work describing, as much as possible, all the features and the routes of the mountain groups described in its volumes. In the early 2000s the death of the alpinist Gino Buscaini, who coordinated for a long time the publishing activities, and the resignement of his wife Silvia Metzeltin, who had replaced him for a while, endangered the publication of titles left to complete the coverage of the Italian mountains. Thus in 2007 a group of

mountaineering Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...

experts addressed an appeal tho the

chairmanship aimed to ''save the series'' and to revive it thanks to a new cooperation deal between CAI and TCI. The series was indeed completed with in 2013 with its last volume, ''Alpi biellesi e valsesiane''. Many professionals and enthusiasts in mountainering still own and consult the volumes devoted to the mountain areas of their interest. Some of the older issues of the series nowadays are very difficult to find, and its volumes aren't any more updated.

Titles of the 1st series

Titles of the 2nd series

Note

External links

{{portal, Mountain, Italy, Alps
List of the titles
on the

website * Some articles about the history of the seies
part Ipart II
, Florence section of the Club Alpino Italiano Alpine guide books Italian non-fiction books Mountaineering in Italy Books about the Alps Club Alpino Italiano Mountaineering books