Description
The Valley Museum, founded in 1982 by Don Federico Scanziani, tells the story of the Cavargna Valley, a remote and rugged valley, difficult to access until 1953, the year the provincial road was completed. This ethnographic institution documents local mountain traditions, traditional crafts, and housing adaptations to the Alpine environment.
The exhibition route
The museum is divided into several thematic rooms that illustrate daily life in the valley through the centuries:
- Hydroelectric power plants and media room With documentaries on traditional crafts
- The Magnans: tinkers, coppersmiths, boilermakers and the blacksmith's forge
- Popular religiosity: liturgical furnishings and eighteenth-century statues
- Mountain breeding: the stable, the mountain pasture and the milk processing
- Woodworking: charcoal, carpentry, smuggling and chestnuts
- Flours and grains: antique dough machine and bread ovens
- Wool processing: traditional costume and living interiors
- Steelmaking and alpine fauna: local minerals and the shoemaker's trade
Educational visits
The museum offers four educational itineraries for primary and secondary schools, lasting from 2 to 6 hours: mining and the iron and steel industry (with access to the Mezzano mine), the memory of traditions, the blacksmith's trade and Rungin slang, and popular religiosity.
Recognized as a Museum Collection by the Lombardy Region in 2007, the Valley Museum is managed by the voluntary cultural association “Amici di Cavargna”.
Gallery
