As a result of the grouping of several villages, the town of  Bassone overlooks the valley of the Bettinia or Betigna river. Campodonico, La Costa, and Belvedere are some of these villages, but one in particular, Casalecchio, remains located “in the mountains,” where rye and potatoes were predominantly cultivated. This grain, once threshed, was also used to cover the roofs of ancient huts.

The agricultural economy of Bassone was also based on chestnut cultivation and sheep farming.

The spectacular location of Belvedere, mentioned earlier, offers a commanding view of the entire valley. In this very area, in past centuries, stood the Castle of Bardera, mentioned in a document from 1164 among those granted in fief by Frederick Barbarossa towards Obizzino Malaspina. These references take us back to a time when Pontremoli, Parma, Piacenza, and the Malaspina family were in conflict with one another, and it is likely that during this period the castle, an important outpost along the Borgallo route, was destroyed by the Pontremolese.

The village of Belvedere, therefore, seems to preserve ancient mediaeval traces, as well as the memory of a convent, of which few ruins remain.

The residential core of Bassone is closely clustered around the church of St. Giovanni, built in 1789 and designated a parish church in 1883 by decree of the bishop of Pontremoli, who separated it from Vignola.

Like many small towns in Lunigiana, Bassone is a land of migrants, with its people starting to leave their homeland in the early 1900s to move abroad, heading to Corsica, the Americas, and after World War II, to France, Germany, and Switzerland.