Monte Camiolo

Among the local people of the Vestino Valley, the mountain of Camiolo is a rather large territory and denotes an articulated set of peaks, passes, paths, waterholes, agricultural lands, forests, and localities surrounding the mountain itself. Almost always, "Camiolo" refers not so much to the peak from which it does not actually take its name, called Pesòc, but rather refers to the area as a whole in the extensive meaning described. The mountain is characterized by vast wooded areas and grasslands with rural lands used in the past for growing fodder and raising livestock. Commonly it is divided by locals into three geographical zones: the summit, middle and basal zones, and the localities or rustic lands are usually derived from anthroponyms, that is, they take the name or nickname of the individuals or families who owned them.

The summit is called Camiolo di Cima and includes, starting from north to south, the locality of the Olva[note 1] property, the properties known as the Cioaröi and Bendoi estates, the ruins of the property known as the Fienile del Fö (beech tree), the Bocca Croce pass (1,061 m.), the Apene[note 2] property, the Pine[note 3] mountain with its 1,225 m, the Casì estate formerly owned by Legate Marzadri, Dosso Tondo, the Pesòc estate, Cima Camiolo, the summit of Mt. 1. 235 meters and the Prà Snidio property; the middle zone is called Camiolo di Mezzo, Mess in the local dialect, with the two Pir estates and the Fabbrica estate built in 1877 by Filippo Viani, while the lower part, Camiolo di Fondo with the wooded locality of Paüe in the northeastern part, the localities of fondo Fornaci,[note 4] fondo Massa dei Bernàrc, fondo Massa dei Boter, fondo Massa[note 5] dei Mangane, the ruins of fondo Sebaghe, the ruins of fondo Vianì, the ruins of fondo Celi and fondo Mangana.

There is no presence throughout its territory of any water table, and in the past each cottage farm was used for food or for watering livestock from cisterns or rainwater pools. Supporting the past agricultural economy are the ruins of kilns devoted to the production of lime and roofing tiles and numerous charcoal farmyards, known as "giài."

The pass of Bocca alla Croce or Croce di Camiolo is a historical and legendary area of the Vestino Valley, located at an elevation of 1,061 m. It separates the main ridge of Mount Camiolo from the Droanello valley with that of the Magasino stream and can be reached by car, on a dirt road and with a transit permit, from the town of Magasa or Valvestino and there is a landing pad for a rescue helicopter. The toponym derives from the intersection of the four trails and the width of the pass that connect them to the north with Magasa, Mt. Mangà, Mt. Gosauer, to the south with Camiolo di Cima to the southeast with Droane, Tavagnone, and to the northeast with the Fornello-Cima Rest-Cadria. The history of the Vestino Valley made by merchants, peasants, horsemen, charcoal-burners and bandits of the 16th and 17th centuries, by the armies of the Venetian Republic in 1526, by Garibaldi's army in 1866 and by the Italian army in 1915 passed through here.

The study carried out by Don Mario Trebeschi , former parish priest of Limone del Garda, of a crumpled and in places illegible parchment preserved in the Parish Archive of Magasa, brought to light the intensive exploitation of alpine pastures, forests, and torrential waters in the Vestino Valley that was often the cause of interminable and bitter quarrels among the six communities, especially in the disputed areas of the Tombea and Camiolo mountains; each of them claimed, more or less strongly, ancient rights of possession or transit, with the result that normal and proper use was compromised by constant trespassing by herds and illegal logging. Therefore in the early 16th century, to avoid worse trouble, it came in two successive stages with the authoritative arbitration of the Lodron counts to a partition of these places among the various villas or "communelli." In fact, these played an active role in the affair, energetically persuading the communities to the final resolution of the problem by signing an agreement that was as balanced as possible, so much so as to completely and definitively satisfy the exacting demands of the many parties involved.

On July 5, 1502, the notary Delaido Cadenelli of Valle di Scalve drew up in Turano under the kitchen porch of the house of a certain Giovanni, a settlement deed between Armo and Magasa for the consensual exploitation of the neighboring Cablone valley (in the document Camlone, located below Mount Cortina). Present were the deputies for Armo: Bartolomeo, son of Faustino, and Stefenello, son of Lorenzo; for Magasa: Antoniolo, son of Giovanni Zeni, and Viano, son of Giovanni Bertolina. Serving as appellate judges were Counts Francesco, Bernardino, and Paride, sons of the aforementioned Giorgio, who went down in the history of local chronicles of the time as men endowed with bloody ferocity.

On October 31, 1511, in the rectory of the church of St. John the Baptist in Turano, Bartolomeo, son of the late Stefanino Bertanini of Villavetro , a public notary by imperial authority, stipulated the document of the largest land division ever in the Valley, more than a third of its territory was affected. An initial agreement had already been stipulated on September 5, 1509 by the notary Girolamo Morani on records of the notary Giovan Pietro Samuelli of Liano, but following the intervention of some variations it was preferred, at the invitation of Counts Bernardino and Paride, to completely revise everything and thus proceed to a new partition. In the presence of Count Bartolomeo, son of the late Bernardino, the parish priest Bernardino, son of the late Tommaso Bertolini, Francesco, son of Bernardino Piccini, both from Gargnano, the Bergamasque Bettino, son of the late Luca de Medici from San Pellegrino, were gathered as witnesses, three proxies for each municipality, with the exception of Bollone, which was not part of the dispute (for Magasa were present Zeno, son of the late Giovanni Zeni, Pietro Andrei, and Viano Bertolini), and the division of the property due to each individual village was solemnly carried out. Magasa was given the ownership of Mount Tombea up to the meadows of Fondo including the area pertaining to the Alvezza pasture and the exclusive right to all transit rights; a part of wooded territory on the Cima Gusaur and on the Apene hump in Camiolo, in compensation it paid 400 lire to the other communities as recompense for the damages suffered for the deprivation of the aforementioned mountain passages.

Some clauses expressly stipulated that the Nangone bridge (Vangone or Nangù in the local dialect) was to be in common use and that along the Toscolano stream bed cattle could be freely grazed and its water used to feed the hydraulic mechanisms of the factories. In contrast, grazing and illegal cutting of plants was severely punished with a fine of 10 coins for each offense committed. In the end, after rereading the specifications, all the contractors declared that they had full knowledge of the parts of property they had in their possession, that they acknowledged that the division implemented was impartial, and that they respectfully observed the statutes, orders, provisions and decrees of Count Lodron, lords of the Lodrone community and those of Val Vestino. Then the representatives of Armo, Magasa, Moerna, Persone and Turano swore before Count Bartholomew Lodron, touching the holy gospels, that they would not counterfeit and contravene the present land division and, by their act, submitted themselves to the judgment of the ecclesiastical forum and the sacred canons of Chalcedon.[5]

Cima Gusaur and Cima Manga in Val Vestino had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire since the beginning of the Great War and were captured by Italian bersaglieri of the 7th Regiment on the first day of the conflict, May 24, 1915, in the rain. In anticipation of the Kingdom of Italy's entry into the war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Regiment was mobilized on the western Upper Garda, framed in the 6th Infantry Division of the III Army Corps and was composed of the 8th, 10th and 11th bis Battalions with orders to reach in hostile territory the first line Cima Gusaner (Cima Gusaur)-Cadria and then the Bocca di Cablone-Cima Tombea-Monte Caplone line to the north.

On May 20, the Regiment's three Battalions reached Liano and Costa di Gargnano, Gardola in Tignale and Passo Puria in Tremosine awaiting the order to advance to Val Vestino. On May 24, the bersaglieri advanced from Droane toward Bocca alla Croce on Mount Camiolo, Cima Gusaur and the village of Cadria, arranging themselves on the line from Mount Puria to Dosso da Crus via Mount Caplone, Bocca alla Croce and Cima Gusaur. On the same May 24, from Cadria, the commander, Colonel Gianni Metello,[note 7] reported to the Giudicarie Subsector Command that there was no trace, nor was it known, of any work being done in the valley by the enemy, whose troops had retreated to tactical positions beyond Val di Ledro. He highlighted that there was starvation in the area, devoid of resources, with only old men, women and children. The following day they reached Mount Caplone and Mount Tombea without encountering resistance.[6] Lorenzo Gigli, a journalist and special envoy following the advance of the Royal Italian Army wrote: "The advance took place very peacefully on the Giudicarie road; and equal success had the occupation of the area between Garda and Lake Idro (Vestino valley) where the villages of Moerna, Magasa, Turano and Bolone were conquered without a fight. The populations greeted the liberators very festively; the old men, women and children (for able-bodied men can no longer be found) came out to meet them with great joy: The Italian soldiers! The Austrians, before they left, had described them as hordes eager for revenge. And lo and behold, they came without firing a shot...At Magasa, a small town in the Vestino valley, our people entered without resistance. They found, however, all the houses closed. The only person from the village that could be seen was an old woman. They asked her, "Are you glad the Italians came?" The old woman hesitated and then answered in a voice veiled with fear, "What if those ones come back?" "Those," of course, are the Austrians. They will never come back. But they have left such a memory in these unfortunate survivors that they still dare not believe liberation is possible and refrain from openly expressing their joy for fear of possible reprisals. The work of the Trentino clergy helped to create and increase this inordinate fear. With rare exceptions (most notably that of the prince-bishop of Trent, who was imprisoned by the Austrians), the priests of Trent are the most steadfast propagandists of Austria. One officer told me, "As soon as we enter a conquered country, the first person we capture is the priest. Many have been taken so far. It's a kind of preventive measure....".[7] On May 27 they occupied further north Cima Spessa and Dosso dell'Orso, from where they could control the Val d'Ampola, and on June 2 Costone Santa Croce, Casetta Zecchini on Mount Calva, Mount Tremalzo and Bocchetta di Val Marza. On June 15 they deployed between Santa Croce, Casetta Zecchini, Corno Marogna and Passo Gattum; on July 1 between Malga Tremalzo, Corno Marogna, Bocchetta di Val Marza, Corno spesso, Malga Alta Val Schinchea and Costone Santa Croce. On Oct. 22 the 10th Battalion entered Bezzecca, Pieve di Ledro and Locca, while the 11th bis deployed on Mount Tremalzo. In 1916 were the last days of the Bersaglieri presence on the front of the Ledro Valley: between November 7 and 9 the battalions withdrew to Storo and from there to Vobarno and then continued by train to Cervignano del Friuli and their new destinations.

Of the earliest information on the practice of hunting in the Valley there is a writing from as far back as 1840 by the geographer Attilio Zuccagni-Orlandini, who wrote about the local economy: "Just as the inhabitants of Val di Ledro, those of Val Vestina profit from the hunting of birds, many taking many of them and then sending them to be sold as far as Brescia, so these of Val Vestina find in hunting profit and pastime."[8] Mount Camiolo was always among the favorite hunting grounds of the Bettoni counts, a noble family originally from Gargnano. In fact, Count Ludovico Bettoni Cazzago, a native of Brescia who lived during the 19th century, a politician and senator of the Kingdom, is reported in the family chronicles to have preferred wandering hunting for woodcocks, hares, and grouse in the Vestino Valley or in the mountains of Tremosine, where he went with large packs of dogs, in the company of his peasants and many friends, including Agostino Conter.

Later, in 1896, he wrote from Rasone di Gargnano in a hunting magazine about the paucity of game numbers and the illegal means practiced to hunt them, including in the mountains of the Vestino Valley. The signature of the article is anonymous, but since the place was the mountain residence of the Bettoni counts, perhaps the columnist belonged to that noble family and it can be assumed that he was Count Ludovico Bettoni himself: "Rasone di Gargnano, October 11. Today we have unseasonable weather, water, wind and fog. Of finches and other birds in general there has been a slaughter of them in the past few days, but of woodcocks here we have not had the fortune of seeing one until now. The displeasure is soothed, however, by a few partridges and hares, but at best it is bad hunting. I did not mention my trip to the Vestino Valley, because I was almost disillusioned, although I was luckier than many others. From the findings I must conclude that if not provided for in time, the stationary game will soon disappear because of the many illegal means that are used for its wildfowling. From the reports I read I can safely assume that even hunters in the plains get meagre results from their hunting excursions, so it can be repeated that: "If Messena cries, Sparta does not laugh. Miss." He added regarding the phenomenon of poaching: "Mountain hunting practiced in the territories of Tignale, Tremosine, Cadria, Val Vestino, Bagolino, in Valsesia and in part of the upper Camonica Valley, with the exception of the queen of the woods, has left gratifying memories, for the fact that partridges, rock partridges, rock ptarmigans, western capercaillies and hares have been satisfactorily hunted, in spite of the increasing poaching, which, in order not to be repressed, is increasing in audacity every day."[9]

In 1940, the Prefect of Trent considered the advisability of ordering until further notice a complete ban on hunting and birding in the territory of the province of Brescia constituting the Valvestino hunting reserve, "the concession of which was arranged by decree of the Prefect of Trent dated August 19, 1931-IX, No. 23881/TII B, decreed pursuant to Article 23 of the aforementioned Testo Unico is hereby ordered, until further notice, the absolute prohibition of hunting and bird trapping in the Valvestino hunting reserve, the concession for which was ordered by decree of the Prefect of Trent dated 19 a posta 11-1X, no. 3881/111 B. The Brescia Provincial Hunting Committee is charged with the execution of this decree. This decree will be published in the Official Gazette of the Kingdom. Rome, ddl December 22, 1940-XIX. Minister Tassinari."[10]

The puddle present on the southwestern slope of the Mount beyond the Corsetti property, known as the "lavàc," plays a fundamental role in maintaining the grazing activity of wild livestock, but also in protecting the biodiversity of habitats and species, especially amphibians, which through these pools of water can find an ideal place for their reproduction. Local tradition reports that, given the lack of springs and streams in the area, the puddle had existed for centuries and the technique for making it consisted of manual excavation in the impluvial area of the mountain slope to facilitate subsequent filling with the natural collection of rainwater, percolation or snowmelt. The main problem encountered by the farmers was the waterproofing of the bottom: often the simple trampling of the livestock, with consequences compaction of the soil, was not sufficient to ensure water tightness due to the low clay content of the soil present, so it was necessary to distribute on the bottom a layer of good clay soil found in the immediate vicinity. However, as this was not possible due to the diversity of the soil, a thick layer of soil and beech foliage was compacted on the bottom, which could form an effective felt to retain water. To ensure a sufficient supply of water needed to fill the puddle, or to increase it, it was often necessary to make small surface channels, dug along the adjacent slope to intercept even a modest amount. Periodic maintenance, usually on an annual basis, consisted mainly of removing soil that had slipped inside due to the continuous trampling of watering livestock and the percolation of wildlife. Clearing of aquatic vegetation was also done to maintain the functionality of the puddle by preventing it from overgrowing inside by accelerating its natural silting process. Particular care was taken during these stages as there was a risk of breaking the continuity of the impermeable layer and compromising its functionality; for example, it was preferred not to remove any boulders on the bottom. The puddle, which had fallen into disuse for decades, was remodeled by ERSAF Lombardy in 2004–2007 with the "Life Nature project biocoenosis rehabilitation in Valvestino and Corno della Marogna".[11] It was designed to allow livestock and wildlife to access it again even down to the bottom of the pond when water is scarce. In the past, almost every private agricultural property had a waterhole, while the municipality of Magasa built its own to serve the funds in its territory in the area north of the mountain near the trail access. It traditionally took the name "lavàc de Comù," which means for public use, or "lavàc dei Ghenghèr" or "dei Campane," from the nickname of the farming families who used it. Even today, the remains of the excavations of eight waterholes can still be found on the mountain.

A legend says that between 1496 and 1537, a plague epidemic exterminated 150 people from the village of Droane sparing only two old women who took refuge in Tignale, and the plague was so terrible that by placing a loaf of bread on the ridge of the Bocca, the one facing the Droanello valley immediately blackened while the one on the side of the Vestino valley remained white.[12]

There are numerous ancient charcoal kilns on the mountain, symbolic of a profession that disappeared decades ago. The charcoal pile, pojat in the local dialect, was a technique widely used in the past in much of the Alpine, subalpine and Apennine territory to transform wood, preferably beech, but also fir, hornbeam, larch, ash, chestnut, turkey oak, pine and mountain pine, into charcoal. Valvestines were considered expert charcoal burners, carbonèr as they were called, as also reflected in the writings of Cesare Battisti.[14][15] The earliest records of this profession date back to the 17th century, when men from Val Vestino applied to the authorities of the Serenissima for health permits to travel to Florence and Venice. They practiced their work not only in Italy but also in the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in the late 19th-century United States of America in Syracuse-Solvay.[16]

Although this technique has undergone minor changes over the centuries, the charcoal kiln has always maintained a conical mound shape, formed by a central chimney and other side vent shafts, used for the purpose of regulating air draft. The charcoal production process takes advantage of imperfect wood combustion, which occurs under conditions of low oxygenation for 13 or 14 days.[17]

These small barnyards, locally called ajal, jal or gial, were scattered in the woods at fairly regular distances and connected by dense networks of paths. They had to be located far from draughts and consisted of sandy, permeable soil. Very often, given the steep terrain of the woods, they were supported by dry stone walls, and nearby the charcoal burner would build a wooden hut to shelter himself and his family. Small pieces of charred wood can still be found in these pitches today. They were carefully cleaned during the preparation of the wood.[18]

When the firing was completed, the decarbonization stage would begin, which required 1–2 days of work. First the coal had to be cooled with numerous shovelfuls of earth. It was then extracted by extinguishing any embers left burning with water. The quality of the coal obtained varied depending on the skill and experience of the charcoal burner, but also on the wood used. The best quality coal had to "sing well," that is, make a good noise. Finally the coal, when it was well cooled, was bagged and transported by the muleteers to the Garda Riviera to be sold to buyers. Both domestic and industrial use was made of this coal, and the practice fell into disuse in the Valley shortly after World War II supplanted by the use of electricity, diesel fuel and its derivatives.[19]