Along the Canopi route

Welcome, adventurer!
I will be your guide throughout this journey. Now, look at me. What do you think I am doing? That is right, I am digging a tunnel! A low, narrow tunnel deep beneath the surface! Why am I doing this? Well, because I am a Bergknapp! I’m a miner, one of the unsung heroes who in the Middle Ages bored tunnels through the mountains from Bohemia to Tyrol. As I said, in German I am called a Bergknapp, but if you speak a Neo-Latin language, you may also call me “Canopo”, which is easier to pronounce, too!
As you walk along the Canopi route, I will tell you the history of the mines here in Primiero, where I used to work hundreds of years ago. The Canopi Route is a leisurely-paced walk that takes approximately one hour to complete. The route cuts across the valley and reaches the slopes of Sass Padela, just above Transacqua. From here, you can clearly see your destination, just past the last few scattered houses. We will meet seven more times at different points. When you spot me, just come closer and scan the QR code to listen to my stories. You can keep listening as you walk to the next stop! If you ask anyone from Primiero about Canopi, they will likely tell you that: “The legacy of the Bergknappen still lives on!” This should not come as a surprise: right now, you are not too far from two buildings that we built ourselves. The Palace of Mines, which we built in the mid-1400s under the rule of Sigismund, Archduke of Austria and Count of Tyrol, served as both an administrative centre and a storage location for the copious silver we mined.

The Gothic Archpriest Church, which we started building in 1460, stands where a 5th-century early Christian Cathedral once stood: unfortunately, it had become too small to accommodate everyone. Once inside, look up at the vaults: do you see them? Those miners’ tools are the symbols of us Canopi! If you are lucky, you might even get to see a beautiful monstrance made of local silver. Due to its incredible value, it is exclusively displayed and used on very important occasions. But our legacy is about far more than a few buildings: we left behind soil heaps, German-inspired dialect words, family names (passed down from generation to generation), a few dishes and, last but not least, some characters from our legends and stories. One last thing before you go! If you would like to step back in time and see how things used to be when we were around, Primiero holds an annual festival (started in 1993) to celebrate its past. You may even go to the garden of the Palace of Mines to visit a reconstructed mining town, which was added to the festival in 2008. The town is called Taufersdorf… I have met many a Taufer myself! Now, without further ado, let our mining adventure begin. Just go down the steps of the Negrelli Garden, cross the main road, and you will reach the covered bridge over the Cismon stream – see you there!

Welcome to your second stop along the Canopi Route!

We Bergknappen, or Canopi if you prefer, arrived in what is now the Province of Trento at the end of 1100 A.D.. We all came from the German-speaking area. What did we come for? Well, that’s obvious! We came for the silver-bearing galena deposits of Mount Calisio, northeast of Trento! As you may know, galena is an ore of lead and an important source of silver: this is why it occurs in crystals of a grey-black metallic hue. This is also why that mountain and its surroundings were called Argentario, from the Italian word for silver (“argento”). The people of Trento still call it that today. Our work became so important that, in the early 13th century, the Prince-Bishop of Trento, Federico Vanga, decided to regulate our tireless activity by drawing up the so-called “Liber de Postis Montis Argentariae”. If you ask me, those mines were quite…well…practical. Through a series of short tunnels and shafts, we could easily reach the deposits, where we would dig chambers known as Canope. Once the Argentario mines were no longer profitable, we Bergknappen moved eastwards until we reached Primiero and the Vanoi Valley. It was the second half of the 14th century. Here, we were joined by the Bohemian Canopi from Kutnà Hora and by the Canopi coming from the Tyrol area, including Schwaz. We wore very distinctive clothes. Our linen shirt, called Kittel, had a pointed hood, the Gugel, which helped us avoid smashing our heads on the low ceiling of tunnels.

Our trousers were made of a thick fabric called “loden” and were covered in lanolin (yes, it smelled as bad as you can imagine, but it was waterproof!). We would also wear a leather apron, the so-called “Arschleder” (which literally means “arse leather”) to protect our buttocks and thighs when working or moving around the mine, but we would also use it to protect our heads from the water dripping from the ceiling. We worked in teams of three using our special tools: a hammer (Schlaegel) and a pick (Stufeisen). If I’m being honest, there wasn’t much room to swing the hammer, so we had to resort to small hammer taps, digging our way just a few inches per shift. We worked shifts of eight hours… eight painfully long hours. Down there, we would lose track of time, with only the dim light of small lanterns to keep us company, the air so thick with humidity and abrasive dust we could hardly breathe. Yes, we made a pretty penny for that, working six days a week with an additional sixteen days off per year, but still… Imagine what can happen to your bronchi and lungs when you breathe dust all day long, your face only a few inches from the rock you dig. Many of us would fall ill over the years. Unfortunately, many died. Alright, that’s enough sadness for today. Don’t let it spoil the fun. Come on! It’s time to reach the third stop: walk over that little bridge, cross the road, and turn right.

See you later!

Welcome to your third stop along the Canopi Route!
As you know, we used two simple tools: a hammer and a pick, paired with our unmatched ability to identify metalliferous minerals. Yes, we were very good at following the vein and digging, but there is so much more to mining than that. First of all, before we could even begin to dig, we needed to locate the ore, be it iron, copper or the much-coveted silver! Here’s what we would do, believe it or not: a man would walk back and forth holding a sort of y-shaped wand in his hands. The butt end of the stick was supposed to twitch upon finding an ore deposit. It sounds incredible, doesn’t it? Well, according to some it was no magic trick: that man just had a profound knowledge of herbs and flowers, since some plants act as indicator species for likely ore body locations. Then, we would start digging and if we found a vein…well, that’s when the hard part began! As I told you, we worked in teams of three men. One of us would lie or crouch on the floor and dig a tunnel between 40 and 70 cm, which was about as comfortable as working under a table, whereas the other two would work on lowering the tunnel floor. In this way, we would create a passageway 170 cm high and 50 cm wide – just big enough for miners to pass through. Anything we dug or removed, we then had to carry outside: to this end, we had to widen the existing tunnels or create new ones. However, excavating these tunnels only using our hammer-pick technique would have taken too much time and too much work. So, what did we do? Well, we had a few different options. We could use bigger tools, such as pickaxes, sledgehammers and big chisels. We could cause the rock to crack and break by heating it and then pouring cold water on it. This option had one huge downside, though: how much time can you resist in a tunnel full of smoke? We could also hammer dry wooden wedges into the cracks, and then soak them in water. Water causes wood to swell, breaking even the hardest of rocks. I know what you’re thinking: “Why didn’t you use explosives?” Well, we didn’t have them. That’s modern stuff. But wait, there’s more.

You don’t actually think that all tunnels are naturally self-supporting, do you? Because they usually aren’t. In order to prevent collapse and cave-ins, we had to reinforce them using robust wooden beams – more specifically, two beams mounted vertically or at an angle to support the beam on top. Yes, there was never a moment of rest. And then there was the problem of fresh air, or the lack thereof. We had two ways to make air more breathable. We could either use big bellows to force fresh air into the tunnels or create vertical shafts to aid airflow. But what about all the stuff we found? How did we transport it out of the mine? We would carry it by hand, in our hoods or in small crates. Simple as that. We would take everything to the main tunnel, where there was the so-called “mine dog”, a cart that was pushed along wooden tracks. Of course, there were other miners down there. But we were the ones doing most of the work, if I do say so myself. Without our experience, our hard work and our courage… there would have been no minerals, I’ll tell you that much! Once out of the mine, other people would use their craft to transform the rocks and minerals we had mined into metal. Now look at the slope above the Sports centre. We call it “Kippe”, or “chipa” in the local dialect: it’s a spoil heap made of waste material. If you turn towards the Archpriest Church and the Palace of Mines, you will see another kippe, known as the “Colaor”, with a chapel at the top. There are many kippen around here. Each one of them was located near the entrance of a mine, which also served as the exit, since we went in and out from the same tunnel.

Now go up the river and take the first road to the right. We’ll catch up there!

Welcome to your fourth stop along the Canopi Route. You’re halfway there!

The story I’m going to tell you started about 400 million years ago. Now, you might be wondering: what can a poor Bergknapp from 1400 know about the history of mining? I know, I know, I should only tell you stories from my own life, but a man’s life is just a blink of an eye in the face of millions of years of human evolution! So please allow me to digress a little. All right, let’s start. Don’t worry, I won’t fill your head with dates like an old, boring teacher, we’ll just go over the basics. Some 400 million years ago, the Earth’s crust began to fold, creating the so-called Southalpine metamorphic basement – the base of the Alps. The rocks it was made of had been subjected to high heat and high pressure deep underground: as a result, they were rich in minerals, which formed when magma, a mixture of molten rock found beneath the surface of the Earth, started to cool down. Then, about 274 million years ago, something unprecedented occurred. Back then, not only had the dolomite rocks not formed yet, but this part of the Earth’s crust was very far from here, all the way near the equator. Well, a large amount of magma flew into the metamorphic basement, where it cooled down very slowly, so much so that its minerals seeped into the surrounding rocks, reaching as far as 20 km away. Not bad, huh? This is when Primiero’s mining history begins: 274 million years ago. Millions of years passed, the Earth’s crust broke and drifted to form the continents as we know them today. Eventually, the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate collided and the Cima D’Asta Massif was formed. Its mountains are rich in minerals, even if sometimes they get washed away.
Flashforward to 3100-3000 years ago, metallurgists belonging to the Luco (also known as “Laugen-Melaun”) culture started processing metal ores in Primiero and in other areas of the central and eastern Alps. They were incredibly skilled at extracting copper from chalcopyrite (a copper iron sulphide), but the temperature of their smelting furnaces was too low to extract iron. It was the Late Bronze Age. In the Italian peninsula, the Etruscans had mastered the art of making bronze by mixing a small amount of tin with copper, which they most likely purchased from the Luco metallurgists. This was 250 years before the founding of Rome! After the Bronze Age came the Iron Age, and with it the end of the Luco culture and its metallurgists, who seemed to disappear into thin air. What happened then? We don’t know for sure, but mining activity in Primiero only resumed in the mid-1300s. The Community of Primiero, which was under the jurisdiction of the Prince-Bishop of Feltre, had administrative autonomy, its own body of laws and full control over the surrounding meadows, woods, and mountain pastures. Each village in the Community had their own representative, the so-called Marzolo, who was elected annually in March. The Venetians of the Most Serene Republic of Venice were just starting exploiting our mineral resources when a new political entity made its appearance: Tyrol.

Primiero became part of this territory-state in 1373. Mining activities, which at first had been governed by the Counts of Tyrol and then by the Habsburgs, were in the hands of people coming from Venice, Tyrol, and even the Germanic area.
At that time, Primiero was truly a mining paradise! A poem from the mid-1500s reads: “In Primiero, woods and timber you will find, and noble metals of any kind.”
What did they mine? Silver, copper, lead, iron, and gold, just to name a few. In its period of greatest splendour, Primiero was second only to Schwaz when it came to the production of silver. There were approximately 500 tunnels, 100 forges, and 3,000 Bergknappen. The growing importance of Primiero as a mining centre had three major consequences:

• In 1401 the Welsperg barons, who came from Welsberg/Monguelfo in today’s South Tyrol, became its feudal lords…this was not an easy decision to make for the Emperor, but more on this later;
• In 1477, the Archduke of Austria, Sigismund, signed a document regulating the mining activity in Primiero, the so-called “Perchwerchordnung in Primer”;
• The Primiero Mining District was established.

Mining activities came to a halt in 1487 and 1509, during the two wars between Tyrol and the Republic of Venice. They eventually came to a mutual agreement that was beneficial not only to the parties involved, but also to German families such as the House of Fugger in Augsburg. Did our era come to an end? Yes, it did. I don’t remember the exact year, it was a gradual process. From the first decades of the 17th century, mining activities dwindled, until we Bergknappen hung up our hammers for good. Only the siderite mine in Transacqua – one of your stops along this journey – remained operational. This mine had its own steel plant producing iron, steel, and finished products such as locks, furniture fittings, and other tools. However, it was shut down in 1860. In the Vanoi valley nearby, mining activities continued until around the mid-20th century…then it was truly over!

Now follow the road: there are still four stops along the way!

Welcome to your fifth stop along the Canopi Route!
I’ve already told you a lot of things about us Bergknappen-Canopi: what we built, what we wore, what tools we used. You even learned a few things about the history and development of mining in this area. Did you think that was it? There are two more things you need to know. Between the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, Tyrol experienced a mining boom. We were hired by wealthy individuals who had the means to invest in our work. They were seeking to make a profit, of course, as were the people in positions of power (a local count, maybe, or the Archduke of Austria himself) who had granted them the mining concessions in the first place. It was not uncommon for these concessions to be granted to bankers such as the Fugger family from Augsburg, a city in Bavaria. The political authorities wanted to exercise control over the mining activities carried out in the area while making our work as efficient – and as profitable – as possible. The profit from this industry was huge, so much so that the silver extracted was also used to mint coins. To this end, they created a well-oiled executive system known as the Mining Court (“Berggericht” in German).
The Mining Court had a specific jurisdiction, which could be big or small depending on the abundance and distribution of the mineral resources.
Here are the Mining Courts of the Tyrol area, just to give you an idea:

• In today’s Trentino: Primiero and Pergine.
• In today’s South-Tyrol: Nals-Nalles and Terlan-Terlano; Klausen-Chiusa; Sterzing-Vipiteno and Gossensass-Colle Isarco; Taufers-Tures.
• In today’s North-Tyrol: Windisch-Matrei, Lienz, Zillertal, Imst, Hall, Schwaz, Rattenberg, Kirchberg and Kitzbȕhel.

If you’re still not convinced about the major role of Primiero, just think that the whole Trentino region as we know it today was controlled by the town of Pergine, with the only exception being Primiero, a 420-square-kilometre area that was completely autonomous. Here’s a fun fact: the Primiero Mining Court, which comprised the municipalities that are part of Primiero and Vanoi, extended over the same area as the original Primiero community I told you about! Now let’s see how the Mining Court worked. The Court was headed by the “Bergrichter” – the Mining Judge. For us miners, the Bergrichter was the highest authority. This means that the ordinary Court had no jurisdiction over us. The Mining Judge was also in charge of protecting our rights. He made sure we were paid on time and that our food and accommodation were adequate.

I guess you could say we were living the dream. Normal rules didn’t apply to us, we never had to worry about food, and we had a decent wage. However, our job was not the easiest, and the Bergrichter wanted us to be obedient and efficient, or else we would be punished. Sometimes he even resorted to the “Gerichstfronbote”, that is the Mining Court police. The Bergrichter made sure that mining concession holders always paid their taxes and was also in charge of the management of the local resources associated with the mining industry, such as the timber that was used to build support structures and obtain charcoal for furnaces and forges. The Bergmeister was a step below the Bergrichter. He acted as legal counsel: besides monitoring all mining activities, he was also in charge of settling any disputes between concession holders. Now I won’t bore you to death with all of the levels of the hierarchical structure, but let me just mention our direct superiors. In the mine, there was a Taghutmann and a Nachthutmann. They were respectively our day supervisor and night supervisor. Their name has the German word Hut in it, which means “guard”, but also “hat”. And you should have seen how they would prance around, showing their hat off…maybe I’m just being bitter, who knows. Sorry about that.
Primiero became home to a Mining Court in 1477, but the Community of Primiero was not new to changes in administration. Long before 1477 – I hadn’t arrived here yet -, Leopold IV, Duke of Austria and Count of Tyrol, gave Primiero and its castle as a fief to Jörg von Welsperg, who paid 4,000 ducats. Leopold only asked one thing: to use the castle whenever he wanted. At least, this is what Leopold wrote in the official record. But what about the mines? What do you think? Long story short, the Welspergs started reigning over Primiero. The left side of the Canali Valley still belongs to one of the heirs of that family.

Well, this is it for now. Head for Transacqua, you’ll find me again near a fountain. As you may have noticed, I’m quite easy to spot!

Welcome to your sixth stop along the Canopi Route!
You may be wondering: how did locals interact with these strangers who spoke an unintelligible language? At first, the people of Primiero looked upon us with suspicion and fear. After all, we had taken over their land, destroyed their forests, polluted their air with the fumes from our sintering and smelting furnaces, and occupied their fields and meadows with an increasing number of kippen. On top of that, many of my companions would often cause trouble, carry weapons and get into fights. We were known to enjoy a drink or two after a long day in the mines, and we would often lose all of our hard-earned money gambling with cards and dice. And believe me, a drunk man who has just lost all of his money is not someone you would want to be around. This is why the Bergrichter enforced a strict set of rules, which were established by Emperor Maximilian I, Count of Tyrol, himself. We couldn’t read, obviously, but we learned the new rules quickly because our supervisors made sure to repeat them over and over again. If my memory serves me right, the rules were more or less the following:
1. Any Canopo found guilty of a crime will be under the sole jurisdiction of the Mining Judge, with the only exception being those found guilty of rebellion or acts of gross indecency, who shall be judged by the Judge or Captain designated by Lord Welsperg.
2. Hosts, innkeepers and tavern keepers may give wine to Canopi, provided that they do not get them to gamble, on pain of arrest and conviction for both.
3. Canopi are not allowed to attend pubs, inns, and taverns after the second hour of the second vigilia. They are not allowed to gamble with dice or cards, on pain of arrest of all parties involved, including the hosts, innkeepers and tavern keepers.

4. Should any Canopo arrive late at work because of gambling, laziness or excessive drinking, he shall be arrested and severely punished. The same verdict shall be applied for being lazy or negligent at work.
5. In order to prevent Canopi from causing trouble in the Primiero Valley on holidays or days of rest, they will only be entitled to sixteen days off besides Sundays, which shall be dedicated to Our Lord.
6. Should they be found working in the mines on Sundays, holidays, days off or beyond the prescribed working hours, they shall be arrested and severely punished.
7. On holidays and days off, their supervisors and superiors may give them cheap wine. For this reason, the weekly salary will be paid on Sundays.

On Thursday 2 August 1509, these rules were read out loud in the Primiero square in the presence of a prelate, the Mining Judge and a representative of the House of Fugger, who signed the document and promised Lord Welsperg to strictly abide by these rules.
If you want my two cents, these rules were way too strict. However, we had no choice but to obey.

Now walk uphill to the small bridge and cross it. You’ll find a footpath leading to your next stop!

Welcome to your seventh stop along the Canopi Route!
You’re almost at the end of your journey. Good job!

We are at the foot of a mountain known as Sass Padela. Look around, what do you see? A few houses and then woods, woods everywhere. But in my days, things were different. We had to cut the trees down because we needed timber to build support beams and make charcoal for the smelting furnaces. The mountain was dotted with holes, making it look like a giant anthill or block of cheese – just like the mountains in Schwaz. Those holes were the entrances to the tunnels, which were called “Stollen” in German and “stoli” by locals. As I’ve already mentioned, at first the people of Primiero didn’t understand a word we said, but as time passed they started borrowing many words from our dialect. You are about to reach what is maybe the largest mine in Primiero, the one that has been worked the longest. In Italian they use the verb “coltivare” (“to farm”) when it comes to mining, which is ironic, since nothing is sown or grown. We called this mine “Unsere Frau von Plassenegg”, that is “Our Lady from Plassenegg”, very possibly in honour of the Virgin Mary. We did have faith in God, in our own way… maybe because we could use some extra protection and luck down in the mines. We Bergknappen were devoted to the Virgin Mary and to Saint Barbara, but we were also superstitious, which is why we would always wish each other “Gluck auf” (“Good luck”) before delving into the belly of the mountain. This big mine and its tunnels have had several names over the centuries, such as Monte Vecchio, Monte Asinozza, Friole, Cason just to name a few.

The Stol dei Fossi tunnel started right here. Well, call it whatever you want, but it will always be “Unsere Frau” to me! Back in my days, we extracted silver, silver-bearing galena, iron and siderite, but the mining activity started much earlier, around 1350. The rocks we looked for could be in plain sight (like those above S. Martino) or deep inside the mountain like here in Primiero. This area was particularly rich in iron ore, so much so that the village of Transacqua had its own iron smelting furnace. In the mid-1800s, they were still producing 30,000 kg of iron per year. Can you believe it? There was still that much iron left, even after 500 years. They also did something that we had never thought of in the 1400s. They used the iron of “Unsere Frau” to extract copper from the Imperina Valley, near Agordo. They brought it there on the back of a mule, if you can believe that. However, all good things come to an end. The smelting furnace known as Ferareza shut down for good in 1860. The mine has never reopened ever since. If you take a walk into the woods up there, you will see many hollows that are a few metres deep. They are what is left of collapsed ventilation shafts. If you take the left side of the Valluneda valley, you may come across some mine entrances, including the half-collapsed one. The old mine definitely left its mark. Here you can also find the only black pine forest in Primiero: it was planted as a timber supply base, should the mine ever be reopened.

Come on, you’re almost there! Take the steep road on the right, it won’t be long until we meet again. See you there!

Welcome to the final stop of the Canopi Route!

It wasn’t that hard, was it? Maybe the hardest part has been listening to me. Now it’s time to relax and soak in this breath-taking view. They say that when you reach the top, the view is totally worth the climb and you should take some time to enjoy it. Well, when we arrived up here, instead of taking in the scenery we immediately crawled into the tunnels. But you know what they say…To each his own! So please enjoy this stunning view around you, with the Archpriest Church, the Palace of Mines and the Colaor, and see how far you have come. First, look at that maso, the very last building up there on Mount Bedolé: that’s where local metallurgists used to work about 3,000 years ago. Now look to your right, you will see the belltower of the church in Transacqua. On the right side of the belltower you can see the upper part of the Cismon Valley and, near those small buildings along the main road, the Fusinella and Martina Valleys down Mount Bedolé. We got so much silver out of there!
Mining concession holders used to fight over that mine, which was known as Canaleto. It had entrances all the way up to Colsanto, that rock at the top shrouded by trees.

Its tunnels went so deep into the mountain that sometimes we thought that we would never see the light again. And further down, at the bottom of the valley, you can spot some furnaces. That mountain is made of those ancient rocks I was telling you about. Behind you are “Unsere Frau von Plassenegg” and other mineral-rich rocks.
Do you see that purple mountain up there that looks like a horse’s back? It’s known as “Cavallazza” and it’s made of volcanic rock – which is rich in minerals. Directly beneath you, you can see a wide path leading to the entrance of a tunnel. We took that path every day. Now that you have arrived up here, you may be wondering whether the mine – or a part of it – will ever be open to visitors. Well, the answer is: it will be very soon! So, this is it. Thank you for your patience and for listening to my stories. Now, since old habits die hard, let me shout one last time before we part:

Glück auf!
Glück auf!