Cogno: the olcese textile factory

Seeing it and thinking about its history, the emotions of its first labourers,
their desire to free themselves from the work in the fields, one can’t but think
of our Valley’s history, the knowledge, the culture and the traditions erased
in a few years by the mirage of modern life. And here it is, the factory…

The Ossimo vines

Towards the factory. They were going up and down every day, in any weather
and at every hour of day and night. Every stone and every step of the
route was known, like the words of the prayers, like the verses of the songs
they sang to overcome fear. This was the daily life, and in it, these were the
few moments of freedom.

The statues of the gods, of the heroes, of the ancestors remain guarding ancient
rites, silent menhirs on telling stones. There the energy of the path will
lead you, intertwining our dialogue with the other dimension.

History, with the capital letter, taught as school subject, is made by the memorable
deeds of the great leaders and their epics. But besides that History,
there is another one just as important, the one of daily life, told by the
objects gathered in the ethnographic Museum Ossimo Ieri (Yesterday), which
puts together the great and the humble and which helps us understand those
many people’s sense of life.

Thinking of the woods as the first economic resource for a whole town is
difficult nowadays. And yet, until a few decades ago, before the great urban
development of the second houses, this was the case for Borno. And the old
Bertelli sawmill, still well preserved and occasionally working, is a significant
evidence of it. In town there were six more like this one and many generations
of woodsmen worked hard to feed them.

Silence and prayer. This is the place for the soul’s peace and meditation, inspired
by the magnificence of all created things, by the scenic views over the
Valley and by the austere architectures embellished by valuable frescoes, a
Camunian’s extraordinary homage to his own land.

The land clinging to the rocks, the generous vine which repays man’s work
with its valuable fruit, the families united below the same roof in the need
to share the joys and strains of daily life.

The eclectic-Arabian architectural styles could lead astray, but they remain as
an imperishable hymn to the land, capable of appreciated production.