Labour is a sort of religion for the city and the district of Brescia and is not just a coincidence if here there’s the first system of museums entirely dedicated to this topic. The location of Cedegolo is specifically a Museum of Hydroelectric energy, a unique case of reuse of an old power plant for that purpose. Open since 2008, the MusIL is important for the history of electricity and the knowledge of industrial archaeology and local heritage, but it’s also a qualified landmark for research c...

In Valle Camonica there’s a little, tasty cheese named fatulì, standing out for its delicate flavour. It’s made with unpasteurized milk of a local kind of goat, called “capra bionda”, or blonde goat, a rare species with only about 4,000 heads of cattle, saved by extinction thanks to the efforts of farmers and the community. The name of this precious product is very similar to the greek “feta”, small cheese, and doesn’t mean “fetta”, slice. The shepherds used to smoke the fatulì in the Alpine hut...

Since 1946, Villa Ronchi has been the townhall of Breno, in the province of Brescia. The Ronchi family gave it to the local community, as a result of the events after World War II. The mansion was planned according to Neoclassicism, with hints of Ecleptic taste, very common at the beginning of the 20th century. The designer is Fortunato Carnevali, who collaborated on the project with the owner, Giovanni Antonio Ronchi, building contractor and first manager of the Valle Camonica Bank. The medal u...

Two engraved boulders lie in a green hollow, part of a megalythic sanctuary dating back to the early Copper Age: the place is better known as the Massi di Cemmo National Archaeological Park; Cemmo is a little village near Capo di Ponte. Situated in a place called "Pian delle Greppe" and founded in 2005, the site was first described by scholars in 1909, when Walter Laeng noted it as remarkable in prehistoric european rock art. A few years later, in 1914, it was the first mention on the italian To...

Casa Zuelli is situated in Edolo, via Cesare Battisti, and is one of the most interesting stately homes in Northern Valle Camonica. The building has gothic architectural elements; on the facade, there is an inscription, 1350. The coat of arms above the entrance portal belongs to the Federici, a local powerful ghibelline noble family. It misses the half eagle, added after 1411, when Giovanni Federici achieved the title of Knight of Edolo and Dalegno. 

The weird four-eyded face, carved on the c...

Horror vacui is a latin saying wich means "fear of empty space", a common feature in the Romanesque carving, plenty of decorations with fantastic animals and christian symbols. The entrance portal of the Pieve di San Siro (11th century) at Cemmo, in Capo di Ponte, Camonica Valley, is a remarkable example of this habit to fill the entire surface of a space with details. Pieve is a rural church with a baptistery, upon which the nearby churches without baptisteries depended. The name comes fro...

Who was this woman? The instant answere is that July the 22th the Roman Catholic Church commemorates Saint Mary of Magdala, the first person to whom Jesus Christ was revealed after his resurrection, in order to announce the event to the world. The name Magdalene comes from Magdala, her native land. 

The reputation of prostitute dates back to 591, when Pope Gregory the Magnus in a sermon equated her to the adultress (John 8,1-11) and likely messed up with Mary of Bethany, Lazarus' sister, called "...

At a short distance from the National Archaeological Park of Naquane, in Capo di Ponte (BS), which is part of the Rock Drawings in Valcamonica Unesco Site n. 94, the medieval complex of San Salvatore extends on a hillside in front of the Concarena Massif. The most ancient documents testify the monks presence at the end of the XI century; in 1095, a papal bull, signed by the cluniac pontiff Urban II, states the abbey as annexed to the San Paolo d'Argon's Priory. Acquired in 2002 by Fondazione Cam...

Italy has the largest number of Unesco sites, 50 overall, and the Camonica Valley is the first place inscribed in the prestigious World Heritage List, since 1979, as “Rock Drawings in Valle Camonica”. It was an astonishing outcome, given that the Valley of Landmarks was in run with the ruins of the Roman Forum. The chronological range of the signs covers more than 10.000 years, from the Late Paleolithic until the Iron Age and over, with occurrences until the XXth century, with a wide variety of...

The healthy fermented beverages appear first in the Neolithic villages, not only for inebriation but also because of their considerable nourishing features. The English word “ale” has the same root of the Latin therm “alimentum”, which means food. The grape-growing hails from the VI millennium BC, in Armenia and in the Caucasus; during the Bronze Age, farmers started to select wild grapevines; at the same time, dated around XVI BC, in South Italy there are archaeological remains, and then the fi...