Known as the “Silent Giant”, the dramatic 3,000-meter (9,000-foot) peaks of Gran Sasso have long been a symbol of the region of Abruzzo and star of the sprawling Gran Sasso and Laga Mountains National Park.

For centuries, the unforgiving slopes and plains of the highest massif in the Apennines have hosted little more than tiny alpine hamlets and flocks of sheep so vast that they formed the backbone of the Medici family fortune, which began with the wool trade during the early Renaissance.