How we know

Sentences without a label are documented facts; the others are marked "probable" or "uncertain".

The history of the Orco, of the tilt hammers, of copper and of ceramics is pieced together from evidence of different kinds: archive documents, today's studies, university theses, censuses, popular information pages, maps and the book of a 19th-century linguist. This page explains what each one brings, how the certain is told apart from the probable and what we still do not know.

Archive documents

The oldest records of the forges of the Orco come from deeds written for other purposes. On 25 May 1470 the Credenza, the town council of Cuorgnè, orders a new footbridge over the Orco near Campore, because the old one, “costructa sub fuxina nova”, is unsafe: for Marco Cima it is the first mention of a water-driven forge along the Orco. In April 1545 the ducal commissioner Ubertino Marruchi tours the valleys, finds meadows and fields covered with gravel and at Sparone notes mills and forges “diversi generis”. The Pont land register of 1551 lists two forges and a nail works along the “rugia fusine”; in the consegnamenti, the declarations of holdings, of 1568 to Count Francesco Valperga the forges of Sparone are two, plus a “fuxineta”. In 1646-47 the senator Oratio Vercellis counts three forges at Sparone, each with its big wheel.

Other documents count people and works. With the salt registers of 1750, 140 families at Pont can be counted with at least one magnin or one paiolaro, a cauldron maker. The intendancy's survey of 1752 counts 24 large and 43 small forges in the Canavese, but in the village-by-village description the forges become 24 large and 53 small: even an official document can disagree with itself. The 1822 survey on copper counts 10 foundries and the workers of the workshops of cauldron makers and magnani, the smiths. For the Signorelli forges at Cuorgnè there is a file of 62 pages, the deeds of division among the sons, with the valuation of the works made in April 1716: it is kept in the Castellamonte archive.

The portal knows many of these documents through those who transcribed them. The papers of the valleys come above all from Cima's books; Troisi, in his study on the floods, reports with the pages what Pagliotti wrote in 1906 and Bertotti in 1983.

Sources: Cima 2025b, pp. 40, 95-96, 150-153, 228, 232-233; Cima 2025a, pp. 41, 43, 113, 149; Cima 1981, p. 109; Troisi 1997, pp. 6, 12, 22

Today's studies

The scholar on whom the portal relies most is Marco Cima. Archeologia del rame, The archaeology of copper, published in 2025 as the second edition of a 1986 book, reconstructs the mines, forges and magnins of the Orco and Soana valleys; Archeologia del ferro, The archaeology of iron (2024), explains the machines; Il Canavese tra Rinascimento e Rivoluzione industriale, The Canavese between the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution (2025), follows the history of the area. Cima works on the archives, on the surveys of the Canavese forges that the French government ordered in 1811 and on the remains still standing. For the Giovando forge at Sparone he uses the degree thesis of Giovanni Pasquale Sala, of 1937-38, who had watched the work there in the Thirties. With Nisbet he studied the abandoned small forge of Buttifinera.

Alongside Cima there are studies on a single subject. The book by Abà and others, of 1995, follows the Cuorgnè Cotton Mill (Manifattura) from the town council sittings of 1872 to the founding of the company, on 6 July of the same year, up to the power stations. Giorda's article in the catalogue of the 1992 Ceramics Exhibition is the main source on the Castellamonte factories in the 19th century. In his book on the magnins Paviolo gathers testimonies, photographs and registers; with the salt registers Cima and Paviolo count the magnins of Pont hamlet by hamlet. Troisi writes for the Region after the flood of September 1993 and counts 96 floods between 1533 and 1996.

Studies also serve to correct repeated claims. Casalis had Signorelli arrive at Cuorgnè in 1560 and other texts repeated it; Cima shows that the deed of division confirms Bertolotti's 1652.

Sources: Cima 2025a, pp. 7, 21, 138, 155; Cima 1987, p. 46; Cima 1981, p. 109; Abà et al. 1995, pp. 18, 39; Giorda 1992, p. 1; Paviolo, pp. 56, 66; Troisi 1997, pp. 5, 32

The Politecnico theses

Three theses of the Politecnico di Torino bring first-hand surveys and readings. Bussi's, of 2026, is a project for the recovery of the hamlet of Castellaro: it describes the copper forge wall by wall, with stone walls about ninety centimetres thick and at least three extensions; it also recounts recent events, up to the loan to the Park in 1996. On one point the thesis corrected our reading of Cima: the shaft furnace and the forge hearth with the small cupel furnace are two structures and not one probable. On another Bussi and Cima do not coincide: for Bussi at Ribordone there is a copper forge “still preserved in good condition today”, Cima records there a forge whose products are unknown uncertain.

The thesis by Porro and Romanoni, of 2001, studies the Agliè silk mill, built in 1736 on the Canale di Caluso, with the water wheels in the basement. Carta's, of 2023, dates the castle of Malgrà at Rivarolo to 1333-1336; the Cuorgnè museum writes instead “in the first quarter of the 14th century” and the date needs to be confirmed in the archives uncertain.

Sources: Bussi 2026, pp. 25, 53, 56-57, 61; Cima 2025a, p. 47; Porro, Romanoni 2001, pp. 1-2; Carta 2023, p. 99; Museo Archeologico del Canavese 2016, p. 17

Censuses and counts

For the 20th century the figures come from the ISTAT industrial censuses, read page by page in the volumes for the province of Turin. In 1961 the manufacturing industries of Cuorgnè have 2,765 workers, in 1971 2,103. The two censuses, however, do not use the same classes: in 1961 at Rivarolo the “engineering workshops” and the units of “machinery and metal structures” are counted separately, in 1971 only the “engineering units” appear. For this reason comparisons between the two years, such as the fall in textile workers at Cuorgnè from 798 to 366, are only indicative probable. The 1951 census in the volume consulted gives no figures by municipality uncertain.

Even the older counts must be read knowing how they were made. The census of 31 December 1871 finds 7582 inhabitants in the municipalities where the Val Soana dialect was spoken, but it was taken when the men had emigrated: Nigra adds a little under a thousand. The 6 workers of the magnani counted in 1822 are, Cima warns, only those with a fixed workshop: the itinerant ones of the Orco valley are missing. Floods too end up in the documents only when they do damage: we know of many only because they destroyed the Cuorgnè bridge.

Sources: ISTAT 1961, pp. 78, 112; ISTAT 1971, pp. 103, 151; ISTAT 1951, p. 1; Nigra 1874, p. 1; Cima 2025b, p. 234; Troisi 1997, p. 32

Popular information pages and the Park's pages

Many recent pieces of information come from online pages, press releases and magazines. They are useful for the present, but they often do not say where they take a date from: for this reason, in the portal, what comes only from a popular source remains at most “probable”. A Turin municipal magazine of the Twenties or Thirties explains the name Orco as “golden water”, “perhaps” because of veins worked in ancient times, without giving sources uncertain; Wikipedia calls the torrent “Eva d'òr” and speaks of gold-bearing sands, without an ancient source uncertain. Turismo Torino writes that at Castellamonte the working of red earth “develops at the end of the 18th century”, whereas the land register of 1499, quoted by Cima, already names two kilns. An article of 2026 traces the Castellamonte art high school back to a school “founded at the end of the 19th century” probable; according to the head of the school, the Scuola d'Arte was established in 1922.

The pages of the Gran Paradiso National Park are the source for today's Castellaro forge: the opening times of 2026 come from there. On other points they must be read with caution. The 2024 press release says that the forges of Locana, Sparone, Pont and Cuorgnè made war production at some periods, without giving the source probable; for the closure of the forge it writes once “until the beginning of the Fifties” and once until 1952 uncertain. The closure of the Cuorgnè Cotton Mill in 1991 also comes from an online page, that of the European network of industrial heritage probable.

Sources: Turin municipal magazine, p. 93; Wikipedia, entry Orco; Turismo Torino, online page; Cima 2025b, p. 163; newsistruzione 2026; press release of the Exhibition 2017, p. 4; Parco Gran Paradiso 2024, p. 2; Parco Gran Paradiso 2026, online pages; ERIH, online page

Maps, surveys and OpenStreetMap

Maps tell us where things stood. The Napoleonic-era surveys in the State Archive of Turin, in the “Ramai” and “Ferrieri” series, draw the works in plan, elevation and section: the Piova ramera, the copper works, the Bardonetto complex and the Gurgo blast furnace. In 1980 Cima catalogued the forges of the Gallenca valley with their measurements: the card for the Canavet forge says the works were “perfectly functioning and in operation”.

For today's places the portal uses OpenStreetMap, queried on 19 October 2026. The map marks the “Fucina del Rame” museum about 60 metres from the Soana and the Canale Demaniale di Caluso east of Castellamonte, but not its intake on the Orco. The map and the books do not always meet. At Faiallo OSM marks a house called “Martinetto”, a name that suggests a small tilt hammer, but no source read mentions it uncertain; above Pont it marks an “Ecomuseo del rame, del lavoro e resistenza di Alpette” that no source read describes; on the Piova it marks only a mill, where Cima places the ruins of a copper forge. The comparison with the outline of the building on OSM told us that Cima's plan of the Castellaro forge is not mirrored and has north almost at the top probable.

Sources: Cima 2025a, pp. 43, 91; Cima 2025b, pp. 155, 231, 238; Cima 1981, card 15CA; Cima 1987, p. 55; OpenStreetMap, node 14245217201, way 300687843, node 2175729237, way 704982285, node 1262204214, way 204561940

Nigra and the jargon

A source apart is Nigra, who in 1874 publishes in the “Archivio glottologico italiano” a study on the dialect of the Val Soana, with an appendix on the jargon. Nigra writes that the men of the valley practise away from home “the crafts of the coppersmith, the silversmith and the metal founder”, that they leave as autumn approaches and come back in spring and that outside the villages they speak a jargon among themselves, so as not to be understood by strangers. The inhabitants of the upper Orco valley also partly use it. Most of the words were obtained for him at Ronco, from 1861, by Giuseppe Giovando. Before him, in 1846, Biondelli had published the parable of the prodigal son “in the jargon of the coppersmiths of Valsoana”.

Nigra is precise about the words but silent on many things. For “boy” the jargon has two words, “tri” and “armeri”, but Nigra says nothing about the work of the boys: we know of it from Paviolo and from Cima.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 2, 53, 57, 60; Paviolo, p. 58; Cima 2025a, p. 143

We know, probable, uncertain

Every fact in the portal has one of three degrees of certainty. “We know” means that a reliable source says it clearly: the decision of the Credenza of Cuorgnè of 25 May 1470 on the Campore footbridge is a document. “Probable” means that a source proposes it as an explanation or that it comes only from a popular source: according to Cima the “magno lapide” of 1470 is still in the bed of the Orco, with the holes for the wooden supports probable. It is also probable that today's hot forging descends in part from the water-powered forges, because in the Gallenca valley a mill and an iron forge become forging workshops on the same drop of water; for the forges of the Orco a direct link is not documented probable.

“Uncertain” means that the sources contradict each other or that the proof is missing. The flood that is said to have destroyed Canava and its “edifizi metallieri”, its metal works, around 1030 comes from a tradition reported by Pagliotti; no document of the time tells of it and the date is late uncertain.

Sources: Cima 2025b, p. 40; Cima 1981, p. 127, cards 08SC and 09PR; Regione Piemonte 2013, p. 6; Troisi 1997, p. 12

What we still do not know

Many answers are still missing. A complete edition of the Fruttuaria charters, announced before 1973, has never appeared and the sources read say nothing of mills or canals of the monks uncertain. We do not know where the old intake of the Cuorgnè mill canal was, below the chapel of Sant'Anna, nor the one rebuilt after 1654: the answer might lie in Bertotti 1983, at pp. 434-436 uncertain. For Pont we do not know the exact position of the 16th-century forges uncertain. For the Castellaro forge we lack the diameter of the paddle wheels, the weight of the hammer heads, the height of the fall and the blows per minute uncertain.

For the 20th century we do not know the reasons for the closure of the Cuorgnè Cotton Mill uncertain nor which were the two Val Soana power stations of the Rivarolo cotton mill uncertain. We do not know whether magnins or forge workers from the valleys worked in the first forging workshops uncertain; the sources read do not even give the number of firms and workers in today's forging uncertain. For ceramics we lack a study of the 19th-century stoves and a certain date for the school uncertain. What remains, finally, must be seen on the spot: an article of 2025 does not say what the restoration of the Canavet forge rebuilt uncertain and the two copper workshops of Pont described by Paviolo need to be looked for to know whether they are still open.

Sources: Bulst 1973, pp. 18, 98; Troisi 1997, p. 23; Cima 2025a, pp. 41, 44, 105, 173; Abà et al. 1995, p. 341; ERIH, online page; Turin municipal magazine, p. 224; Cima 1981, p. 127; ISTAT 1971, p. 103; Regione Piemonte 2013, p. 6; Giorda 1992, pp. 1, 4; «La Voce» 2025; Paviolo, p. 122