Where to go today

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

Of the copper, the tilt hammers and the ceramics of the upper Canavese there remain a forge that has become an ecomuseum, a few forges and workshops in the valleys, the great factory of Cuorgnè with its museums and, at Castellamonte, the museum, the kiln and the Ceramics Exhibition. This page tells, place by place, what there is to see and whom to ask for the practical information, which the sources read rarely give.

The Castellaro Copper Forge

The forge stands in the hamlet of Castellaro, just before Ronco Canavese, on a flat stretch with a meadow that reaches the confluence of the Soana and the Forzo. OpenStreetMap marks the “Fucina del Rame” museum, part of the Ecomuseo del Rame network, about 60 metres from the Soana. Cima places it in the Crest area, on the left bank of the torrent, while the village and the road are on the right: since the Middle Ages the only link has been a wooden footbridge over the gorge, the “Ponte della fucina” (forge bridge), over which the caravans carrying ore and products passed.

Beside the door, on a cornerstone about 2.50 metres above the ground, one can read “GLAUDO CALVI” with the date 1675, beneath the monogram of Saint Bernardine. Inside, the workshop has eight elements: the shaft furnace, the casting bench, the large forge hearth, the small forge hearth, the cutting and weighing area, the main battery of three tilt hammers, the secondary one of two tilt hammers and the double feed channel. The shaft furnace is the only furnace for smelting copper ores preserved in Piedmont. Outside the building stand the two trompes (water-powered blowers), which blew air into the furnace and the forge hearths, and the channel that comes from the Soana: it is from 1.5 to 2.5 metres wide and at its end it divides between the trompes and the wheels, with a drop of about five metres.

In the 1981 survey the main battery was as the dismantling after the Second World War had left it: the head tilt hammer taken apart, the helve sawn off, the wooden supports and the hammer head lying on the ground. The sources read do not say whether the tilt hammers were reassembled after the restoration. Today the forge is an ecomuseum, in the network of the ecomuseums of the Province of Turin, with a collection of copper objects made by the valley's coppersmiths, whom the Park calls “ruga”, and an educational workshop.

Sources: Bussi 2026, p. 49; Parco Gran Paradiso 2024, pp. 1-2; OpenStreetMap; Cima 2025a, pp. 40, 89, 91-106

From restoration to reopening

In the Nineties the forge was donated to the Municipality of Ronco Canavese. In 1996 the Municipality gave it to the Gran Paradiso National Park on a fifty-year free loan, and the Park saw to its renovation and fitting out. The restoration, around 2000, rebuilt the roof and the walls, which had partly collapsed.

In the early years of the new millennium, with the opening of the copper ecomuseum of the Orco and Soana valleys, the forge reached about 7,000 visitors a year. When the nearby farm-stay closed in 2004, it remained open in summer for about two years; then it closed because of damage to the structure and stayed abandoned for fifteen years. In 2021 the roof covering was redone and on 18 June 2022 the forge reopened. With the Re-Cuivre project, in 2023, it had twelve opening days and 544 visitors, and the art trail in copper “Genius loci” between Ronco and Castellaro was created.

When the forge stopped working is not known precisely: Bussi writes that it remained in operation until 1950, the Park “until the beginning of the Fifties” and, in its historical note, that until 1952 it produced wares for the coppersmiths uncertain.

Sources: Bussi 2026, pp. 53, 61, 64; Parco Gran Paradiso 2024, p. 2; Cima 2025a, pp. 89, 92

Opening days in 2026, read on 19 and 20 October 2026

According to the Park's pages read on 19 and 20 October 2026, in 2026 the Forge opened on set days from June to 13 September, from 10.30 to 13 and from 15 to 18, with guided tours at 11, 15.30 and 17. By that date the opening period was already over. Workshops and excursions had to be booked by the day before at the Ronco visitor centre.

Since 2024 the Forge has hosted a workshop for making copper jewellery. Groups of 15 to 25 people can book visits, excursions and workshops from mid-June to mid-September. The Park hopes to achieve a permanent opening of the Forge, as for its other visitor centres: for now the days are set year by year.

Prices are not in the sources read. Before setting out it is advisable to ask at the Ronco visitor centre or on the pages of the Gran Paradiso National Park.

Sources: Parco Gran Paradiso, pages Eco-museum copper forge and Aperture estive della Fucina da Rame di Ronco Canavese, consulted on 19-20 October 2026; Parco Gran Paradiso 2024, p. 1

The copper valleys: Sparone, Pont, Alpette, Piamprato

Outside Castellaro the sources read describe no other copper sites open with set hours, but they leave many traces to look for. At Sparone part of the water diversion of the copper forge survives, from the torrent that comes down from Ribordone. The Giovando forge, which according to Cima was already working in the sixteenth century, in 1981 was still beating copper with a battery of three “donkey-head” tilt hammers; the Aimonetto forge worked until after the Second World War. Whether they can be seen inside today, the sources read do not say.

At Pont, in the hamlet of Bisdonio, the stone uprights remain of a battery of three iron tilt hammers installed between 1808 and 1809; an old local forge bears the date 1787 carved on a stone. Paviolo calls Pont the historic capital of the magnins. When he writes, two family workshops in the village still work copper by hand: that of Vittorio Aimone in via Roma, where the cavato (hollow ware raised at the hammer) is beaten without a lathe, and that of Elio Ceretto Castigliano in piazza Europa, with cauldrons (paioli) and polentini, still in cavato. Whether they are open today must be checked.

Above Pont, OpenStreetMap marks at Alpette the “Ecomuseo del rame, del lavoro e resistenza”, which none of the sources read describes. When Paviolo writes, Alpette holds courses every year in working copper by hand, from basic techniques to repoussé, entrusted to Ceretto Castigliano himself; they are attended by regular pupils, primary school children and, in summer, tourists. At Piamprato, in the Val Soana, there is a Monument to the Magnin with a bronze relief of coppersmiths at work.

In the presentation of Archeologia del rame, in 2025, Cima writes that, despite the transformations, “copper craftsmanship has not entirely disappeared”.

Sources: Bussi 2026, pp. 5, 23; Cima 2025a, pp. 7, 23, 40, 71, 79-81; Cima 2025b, pp. 155, 158, 235, 237; Paviolo, pp. 58, 88, 94-95, 119-122; OpenStreetMap

Canischio: the forge of the Punt Canavet

In the Gallenca valley, at the “Punt” of Canischio, the Canavet forge of the Peradotto family was still “perfectly functioning and in activity” when Cima recorded it in 1980. It had a nineteenth-century iron wheel 2.25 metres in diameter, which drove the “donkey-head” tilt hammers. Next to it there was a second forge, for copper, which worked until the Fifties.

According to “La Voce” the Municipality of Canischio bought the forge in 2009 and, after about fifteen years and 150,000 euros of work, inaugurated it on 6 April 2025 at frazione Braida 42, with demonstrations by a blacksmith at the “donkey-head” tilt hammer probable. From summer 2026, according to the Unione Montana Val Gallenca, the “Fucina del Ferro di Canischio” has summer openings from the end of June, in a network with Alpette, Ronco Canavese and Sparone probable. The 2025 article does not say what the restoration rebuilt compared with the 1980 record cards, whether the wheel, the shaft, the tilt hammers or the trompe: it has to be seen on site uncertain.

Opening hours and prices are not in the sources read: for the forge, ask the Municipality of Canischio or the Unione Montana Val Gallenca.

Sources: Cima 1981, pp. 116, 167-168, record cards 14CA, 15CA and M01/15CA; La Voce 2025; Unione Montana Val Gallenca 2026

Cuorgnè: the Manifattura and its museums

At Cuorgnè the Cuorgnè Cotton Mill (Manifattura), a cotton spinning mill built between 1872 and 1874 to a design by Adolf Mauke, closes in 1991 and the Municipality buys it to restore it probable. Of the factory one can recognise the staircase tower with its arch, the bell that marked the working hours and the “M.C.” weathervane, from the very first years of the twentieth century. OpenStreetMap marks the Canale della Manifattura, which crosses the town as far as the building.

In the former Manifattura there are the Archaeological Museum of the Canavese, opened in 2004, and the Carlin Bergoglio Art Museum, opened in 2014; they are brought together by the CESMA probable. The archaeological museum grew out of the collections of thirty years of research in the area, from the late Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. It displays Bronze Age pottery from Boire di Pont and finds from Uvera di Cuorgnè, among them a stone mould for a comb. For those following the thread of the tilt hammers there is the model of the La Fray forge at Ceresole, with the battery of two tilt hammers, the channel, the wheel and the forge hearth. There is also the eighteenth-century loom on which Angela Braida wove wool, hemp, linen and cotton until the end of the twentieth century.

The Campore works, about a kilometre from the mill, was a hospital of the Molinette from 1942 to 1945 and from 1969 a factory of induction furnaces: the sources read do not say that it can be visited. Opening hours and tickets of the museums are not in the dossiers: ask the CESMA.

Sources: Abà et al. 1995, pp. 39, 323, 338-339; Cima 2025b, pp. 145, 223, 227; ERIH, online record; Museo Archeologico del Canavese 2016, p. 1; Vigo, Archeocarta; OpenStreetMap

Castellamonte and ceramics

At Castellamonte the Ceramics Museum in Palazzo Botton has a historical and a modern section, with works donated by the artists, and according to Turismo Torino admission is free probable. It keeps parts of stoves from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, fragments of friezes and capitals, tableware and “Franklin” firedogs probable. The classical-style ceramic stoves of Castellamonte take up models found in the residences of the Savoy and of the nobles of Piedmont, in Russia and in other countries.

Every year the town holds the Ceramics Exhibition, which displays the posters of all the editions since 1961. At the 2017 Exhibition there were the stoves of today's local producers, next to designer and author stoves, and the “Felice Faccio” Art High School, which trains the new ceramists, took part. In 2026 the International Ceramics Exhibition was at its 65th edition, from 22 August to 13 September, in 16 venues probable. In 2016 there were eight venues, among them Palazzo Botton, the high school, the Fornace Pagliero, the Rotonda Antonelliana and the castle probable.

At Spineto the Fornace Pagliero is a ceramics centre and a museum with an entrance ticket probable. It keeps period equipment, moulds and matrices and a nineteenth-century firing chamber, with acroteria and vases stacked inside. According to the Abbonamento Musei record the kiln preserves three production lines, from the nineteenth century, the Thirties and the Fifties; in 2003 it was bought by a ceramist, who resumed production with the original moulds found on the spot probable. On its founding date the sources disagree: the same record gives 1814, the press release of the 2017 Exhibition a manufactory born “at the end of the eighteenth century” with a kiln from the early nineteenth century.

In the town, in the house of the Allaira family, formerly a ceramics factory, the large “downdraught” firing kiln survives. On the hill of Filia, in front of the great red clay quarries, stand the ruins of the Hoffman kiln of 1882. The sources read do not say whether these two places can be visited. For the Fornace ticket and for the museums' opening hours, ask the Fornace Pagliero, the Città di Castellamonte or Abbonamento Musei, whose record was read on 20 October 2026.

Sources: Turismo Torino, online records; Città di Castellamonte 2017, pp. 2-6; Mentelocale 2026; Piemonte Informa, article on the 56th Exhibition; Abbonamento Musei, record of the Fornace Pagliero, consulted on 20 October 2026; Cima 2025b, p. 243; Giorda 1992, p. 8

Other places along the Orco

Going up the valley, at Locana the works in the centre of the village, driven by a mill race from the Orco, operated until the middle of the twentieth century and is, for Cima, “still perfectly preserved”, with the millstone for cereals, the press and the crusher for hemp and walnuts.

Going down towards the plain, at Rivarolo the castle of Malgrà was built between 1333 and 1336 for Martino di San Martino, on the right bank of the Orco, and was restored by Alfredo d'Andrade. The west wing is built almost entirely of river cobbles. A fresco in the castle is a record of the road to Ivrea, which crossed the Orco by a ford and a ferry. The castle has belonged to the Municipality of Rivarolo since 1982 probable.

At San Benigno Canavese, of the abbey of Fruttuaria the medieval bell tower remains: in 1770 Cardinal delle Lanze had today's church built over the ancient structures. The remains of the abbey were found by chance in December 1979, during work on the church's heating. The excavations brought to light the three-aisled abbey church, a small rotunda recalling the Holy Sepulchre and a mosaic in the presbytery with griffins on either side of the tree of life. The sources read give no visiting hours: ask the Associazione Abbazia di Fruttuaria.

The Caluso Canal takes water from the Orco at Spineto, near Castellamonte, and runs for 28 kilometres to Mazzè. OpenStreetMap marks it east of Castellamonte but does not mark the intake on the Orco. At Agliè, on the canal, stands the silk mill built in 1736 for Count Giuseppe San Martino.

Sources: Cima 2025a, pp. 182-183; Carta 2023, p. 99; Piemonte Italia, online record; Nigra 1934, p. 78; Museo Archeologico del Canavese 2016, p. 18; Ministero della Cultura, online record; Associazione Abbazia di Fruttuaria, page «Scavo»; FAI, online record; OpenStreetMap; Porro, Romanoni 2001, p. 2

Before setting out

Many places in this story are ruins or lie far from the roads. Buttifinera, the abandoned village of the lower Val Soana with the small forge of the Gea family, stands at 1025 metres, about 350 metres above the torrent, on slopes of over 30 degrees: even today it has no road. The copper mines above Vasario and Ceresa have open-cast workings and tunnels; OpenStreetMap marks five entrances “Miniera di Caramia” on the slope above Sparone. The sources read say nothing about the safety of these tunnels or about permits to enter them.

Some of the information on this page comes from books written years ago and must be checked on site. The workshops of Pont are those that Paviolo finds when he writes. The Canavet forge is described as it was in 1980 and it is not known what the restoration changed uncertain.

Sources: Cima 2025a, pp. 49, 64, 123, 126; Cima 2024, p. 217; Bussi 2026, p. 24; OpenStreetMap; Paviolo, p. 122; Cima 1981, record card 15CA; La Voce 2025