HISTORIC NOTES

Emigration

The earliest records of emigrants leaving the Verzasca Valley go back to 1400, when they set out for cities in Italy, such as Florence and Rome. Towards the end of the 17th century, there are records of emigrants from Lavertezzo going as far as the south of Italy, namely to Palermo. A later phase of emigration took people from here to France and Belgium, where they worked as glass makers. We find people from here who made their way to Lombardy and Liguria as knife grinders, while others went to Piedmont as chimneysweeps. There was also a period of emigration that reached Austria and Hungary, and, after 1850, some emigrants even travelled to Australia (in search of gold) and others to California (as gold diggers and herdsmen).

Business and traditions

In the 1930s, the region's economy went through a deep crisis, and unemployment spread out-of-control. A group of courageous and entrepreneurially-minded people from the Verzasca Valley set up what they called the "Committee for home crafts" to organise the production of the valley's typical hand-made arts and crafts: dyeing wool with natural colours (leaves, roots and fruit available locally), hand spinning, knitting and work with timber. These initiatives affected various different sectors, such as education, farming and tourism, and they were coordinated by associations, such Pro Verzasca.

Apart from processing wool, the Verzasca Valley also has a tradition of processing hemp (as a woven textile), of processing milk, of making hay out of uncultivated grass and of rearing animals, such as cattle and the black goats which are typical of the valley.