Rimella and Its Walser

Municipality of Rimella Rimella and its Walser In the search of an ancient population, its culture and history through ancient houses and churches Copyright Geo4MAP s.r.l. Novara 2015 from map “Gran Tour della Valsesia” printed in co-operation with Piedmont Region Museum G.B. Filippa Giovanni Battista Filippa, born the country in the world. in 1778, conceived and built The collection continued after the Museum of Rimella. the death of Filippa to the interest of Don Gaudenzio Cusa. The Filippa, from 1807 to 1811, did military service and The material is mainly divided took part in the Napoleonic war into two categories: the first campaign in Spain. Discharged includes things to look like in 1812, for serious illnesses, paintings, prints, medals, he died in 1838 at 61 years. He weapons, ornaments and a endowed the community of a rich collection of coins from “cabinet of antiquities and rare the V-IV century BC to 1900; things”, where he collected the second includes books, and classified specimens of parchments (the oldest numerous fossils, coins, books, dates from 1396), ancient in order to inform a community, documents and catalogs. where the majority of members The Museum of G.B. Filippa would spend his life within the is open to public tours during confines of the valley, about the summer months and by what was happening outside appointment. page 1 The home heirs Vasina The ethnographic museum, stone and wooden partitions; the ethno-linguistic archive, only the third floor is entirely the Walser Documentation of wood with perimeter Centre and the Rimella Walser walls made of load-bearing Study Centre are located in the horizontal beams stuck house of Vasina heirs inhabited orthogonally (blockbau). until about forty years ago by Felicita Vasina and probably The galleries, as is typical in until 1930 by his family who the architecture of houses of then built a stone house a little Rimella, are closed by vertical further upstream. timber framed almost at full It’s a typical Wlaser house of height. Rimella built on three floors, to climb on the ground with Characteristic of this house access directly from the are the chràfu, sort of hooks outside. The ground floor was obtained from the bifurcation of used as a stable (der Gadu), the branches that were used to the median plan was where the scatter the hay for faster drying. family lived in the the kitchen (tsvirhüüsch) while the upper The house, now owned by the floor was used as a barn (der municipality of Rimella, was schtàdàl). the subject of a careful and complex restoration. The basement and ground floors are bearing structures in page 2 The Ethnographic Museum It is the museum of the is mainly realized in the man and his mountaun. that Grondo fraction), extraction, highlights the characters transportation and laying and the core values of the of stone , the agricultural experience of the material life cycle (the pasture, hay, into its surroundings. fertilization of peeling fields tree ....), work in the woods. The museum explores the culture of the mountain of It is not neglected issues Rimella with its ingenious related to food, to natural technology and versatile remedies against disease. preserved virtually intact until the beginning of our time by The museum exhibition allowing for centuries the uses both material culture, material survival of the Walser both panels of ethnographic community. documentaries with direct testimonies of the people of The topics covered are: Rimella. the milling business (which page 3 The ethno-linguistic archive Thanks to the law n. 482/99 of Rimella. since 1990 “Regulations concerning the publishes, annually, the protection of historical linguistic magazine “Remmalju” minorities” the Municipality of on the reality of Rimella Rimella has created the Archive ethnolinguistic Walser “which The CSWR involved in all also includes a specialized initiatives aimed at promoting library on Walser language. the oral and written language of the Walser, which include The documents collected are a the Ecomuseum management database in electronic or paer and Walser library, providing form informatic and paper of contribution to the promotion all existing materials on Walser of historical, archival, language, understood both in bibliographical and cultural technical and linguistic sense, promoted by “Municipal both literary. Administration for the protection of the Walser The Association Centro Studi language”. Walser Rimella (Study Center Walser Rimella) was founded in 1988 to safeguard the ethnic and linguistic heritage The Walser community page 4 Ancient Houses and Churches Path 1 Media difficulties - not recommended with rain (Chiesa, Villa Inferiore, Grondo, Roncaccio Superiore, Roncac- cio Inferiore, Pianello, Riva, Sant’Antonio, Sant’Anna, Chiesa) From the square in front of Right along the river, shortly the parking, passing between after taking the steep path to the eighteenth-century Parish Roncaccio Superiore Crossing church dedicated to St. Michael old beech woods, you proceed and the Ossuary Chapel and towards the Natural Park Alta Museum G.B. Filippa, you take Valsesia. With steep ramps the old path and borders the stone you will come to the Parish house. village. Upper left Roncaccio you Continuing you cross the descend to Roncaccio Inferiore provincial road and, going back on the route of GTA. Then take for a few meters, continue the the path to Pianello. cobbled path downhill to Villa Inferiore. You come to the stream alongside a former mill and Further along the provincial is wading climbing towards road is again cross and go Pianello. Reaching left the down to the Fractional Church paved road, cross the Rio of Grondo dedicated to St. Scarpiola. Ambrose. After the bridge on the right, Being next to the Oratory, on the ruins of an old lime kiln. the right, you switch between a Walser house and one of the You advance to the bridge old mills of Grondo on the left. for the Riva fraction, after which you reach the Chapel of Continuing on the right you will Santa Liberata. Once at Riva come across another building Fraction, continue crossing the of interest that has the typical Rio Bach, whose path leads to “lobie” of Rimella. the homonymous mountain pasture and Rifugio CAI Alpe After crossing the bridge over Helo and, beyond Dorchetta, the Landwasser continue. to Bannio in Valle Anzasca. page 5 Go straight instead and you to the group of houses around come to Saint Anthony. After the oratory dedicated to the visiting, the village continue Virgin Mary and St. Anne. along the right bank of the Landwasser on the trail to the From this point begins the hamlet of Sant’Anna. return journey to Sant ‘Antonio, from which you exit turning left Across the river you can see towards the Napoleonic period the houses of Ebe, hamlet now bridge crossing it and returning abandoned and you will reach to Pianello, passing the Church the nucleus of the village, the of Painello and continuing into first and second nucleus are the woods until you cross the separated by a 5 minute walk path of GTA returning to the and the latter begins the ascent Church. page 6 Ancient Houses and Churches Path 2 easy (Chiesa, Sella, San Gottardo, San Giorgio, Wan, Selletta; Posa dei Morti, Villa Superiore, Prati, Chiesa) From church they walk about the GTA trail, you can see San 250 meters along the carriage, Gottardo, which you reach in a before the cemetery you go left few minutes. towards the old barn still intact with the overhang cantilevered The trail climbs gently in costs; front of circular stone pillars. having crossed the stream reaches San Giorgio. Returning to the starting point, follow the signs along the Crossing the mountain pasture old cobbled path to the Sella to the top and then going in fraction. the opposite direction to the destination, you can reach the Even today, Sella is one of pleasant and scenic pastures of the intact and best-preserved Van and Harness, then grafted villages. You enter the village in the GTA trail, which, after along on the left “Robbo a while, come to the historic house”, now restored, dated town of Posa of the Dead. 1593. From the vantage point you At the junction Sella Low, with can see, between the two the path to Hubal promontory branches dell’Enderwasser, now covered with plants, which the cluster of mountain huts juts into the Enderwasser. of Kaval, erroneously indicated by tradition as one of the oldest To the left the trail to a paved settlement nuclei. road to San Gottardo and continues halfway up watching The path continues towards on the other side the steep and Villa Superior floor, while, after craggy slope of Mount Kaval. a few hundred meters that of G.T.A. descends to the left up Past the votive chapel called to the road. “scisskaplu”, after which goes down to the valley in Balmacco, Maintaining altitude and, page 7 passing over the village Sella, The tour ends at the end of the it changes slope, reaching the stone staircase, in front of the oratory of Villa Superiore. Parish Church of St. Michael Church in the hamlet. Crossed the fraction passing next to the Chapel of Our Lady of Einsiedeln, and you descend on the ancient paving stone up to Prati Fraction. page 8 The History of Rimella THE MIDDLE AGE the thirteenth century went from Switzerland, a small The history of Rimella begins group of those peasants and in mid-thirteenth century shepherds. in a rugged landscape. The They was of lineage German resort is nestled between the language in the framework of mountains in a side valley economic, political, social and of the river Mastallone. religious, which occurred in Europe around 1000, colonized The territory consists of two the canton of Valais, they had valleys, the longest one of the to migrate past the Alpine Landwasser (mainstream), ridge which stretches from north to south for seven kilometers THE MODERN AGE and is joined at the Chapel of Liebu Frouwa tsum Schteg Through a study of notarial (“Noise Madonna”) with documents kept at the Civic the Enderwasser (water Museum in Rimella dating inside), which runs for four from 1396 to 1556, in this age kilometers to the east.

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