Who thinks otherwise

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

On the mines of Traversella and Brosso the sources do not agree on everything: when digging began, what was roasted in the kilns of the Strada delle Vote, when Brosso closed, on what day the vitriol privilege was granted, when the iron of Traversella came to an end. This page sets the positions side by side, with the names of those who hold them.

Romans at Traversella and at Brosso?

Costa and colleagues write that at Traversella extraction began "probably" in Roman times, but the article does not say on what evidence uncertain. In the same article the coins found in a croso, one of the small mine workings, near the village are dated "about 300 BC" and at the same time called Roman: the two indications do not match uncertain. Barello later identified among the Balma Bianca coins a coin of Theodosius I, of AD 388-395, and one of Gratian, of AD 367-375; Costa's date must therefore be discarded. According to Munari, Rosanna Beratto, president of the Gruppo Mineralogico Valchiusella, the mineral club of the Chiusella valley, attributes them instead to the reign of Honorius probable.

What do the coins tell us? For Barello and Rubat Borel someone perhaps lived in the cavity, even briefly, between the end of the empire and the age of the Goths; without an excavation nothing more can be said, and the coins do not say that the mine was worked in Roman times. In the main tunnel, in fact, there are no tool marks or traces of working according to the practices of the valley. The page of the Traversella ecomuseum goes further back and links the origins to the Salassi of the 5th century BC, without citing evidence probable.

For Brosso the ancient origins come from a single author. Chiappino writes that in Roman times silver-bearing galena was dug there, almost entirely by the labour of prisoners of war and convicts uncertain; she refers to Sclopis and Bonacossa (1900), to Novarese (1901) and to Colomba (1913-18) without giving the pages. Novarese, who sums up Sclopis and Bonacossa, speaks of a mine "worked almost without interruption since Roman times" uncertain. Again according to Chiappino, the first reliable documents date from the early 11th century uncertain.

Sources: Costa et al. 2019, pp. 3, 9; Barello 2022, slides 4-5; Munari 2020, slide 7; Barello, Rubat Borel 2019, pp. 177-178; Traversella ecomuseum page, «Storia delle miniere»; Chiappino 2010, p. 24; Novarese 1901, p. 75

What was roasted in the kilns of the Vote

Along the Assa, on the Strada delle Vote, there remain kilns in the shape of a truncated cone, of dry stone, 3-3.5 metres high and set against a drop in the ground so that they could be loaded from above probable. What was roasted in them is an open question.

Vescovo reads them as furnaces for roasting iron ore before the low fire and cites Napione, who in 1785 writes that the ore was roasted "in furnaces built like lime kilns" probable. Chiappino, on the other hand, lists among the remains at Brosso "conical furnaces for roasting pyrite" probable: on the 1924 plan she uses in her thesis there are two conical furnaces for pyrite, marked with the numbers 7 and 8. The two authors are not necessarily talking about the same furnaces uncertain. In the Biellese, at the Pietra Bianca mine, a roasting furnace served to prepare magnetite for the blast furnace: it is a comparison, not a proof for Brosso probable.

The age of the kilns is uncertain too. A page about the trail dates them to the 18th century without citing documents probable; a page of the ecomuseum says that the first furnace bears the carved date 1517 probable.

Sources: Vescovo 2002, pp. 25-26; Chiappino 2010, p. 29; Chiappino 1996, p. 65, fig. 10.1; Rossi et al. 2022, p. 136; inalto.org, online page; Brosso ecomuseum page, «L'itinerario»

When Brosso closed

Chiappino writes that Montecatini, the Italian mining and chemical company, after taking over the Sclopis firm, worked the deposits mainly for pyrite until 1964, the year of the final closure probable; in the thesis she speaks of an "official closure". The ecomuseum too gives 1964 probable. A website of enthusiasts instead gives the total closure as 1964-66 uncertain and Vescovo writes that Montecatini extracted pyrite until it ran out "in the 1960s" probable. The year therefore remains to be confirmed uncertain. We do know, on the other hand, that in the Second World War and after the closure the entrances were mined and brought down several times: in 1996, of the roughly 80 entrances of the time of greatest activity, about ten were still usable.

Sources: Chiappino 2010, p. 26; Chiappino 1996, pp. 49, 55; Brosso ecomuseum page, «Cronologia delle miniere»; mineralidelpiemonte.com, «Miniere di Brosso»; Vescovo 2002, pp. 79-80

The vitriol privilege: 16 or 26 June 1781?

In 1781 King Victor Amadeus III grants Francesco Chiumino for fifteen years the privilege of making vitriol in the valleys of "Brozzo", Chy and Pont. The ecomuseum's chronology gives 26 June probable. Chiappino, in her 1996 thesis, gives 16 June and quotes the text of the decree, which names "vitriol, oil, spirit, aqua fortis, rock alum, sulphur" probable. One of the two days is wrong and the sources read do not allow us to say which uncertain.

The privilege comes after the company founded in 1769 by Count Valperga and by Chiumino himself probable. According to Chiappino, in 1790, after the death of Count Giuseppe Ignazio Valperga, Chiumino ceded his rights to the creditors, who kept the mines and the factory until about 1824 probable.

Sources: Brosso ecomuseum page, «Cronologia delle miniere»; Chiappino 1996, p. 46; Chiappino 2010, p. 26

The decline after 1829 and the end of iron

For Costa the peak of Traversella is 1829, with almost a million rubbi, and from then on production declines "slowly and continuously". Berattino agrees: by the middle of the century the ore dug has fallen to about 450,000 rubbi. Jervis, instead, gives 850,000 rubbi for 1835, that is 7,837 tonnes, and ten years later a production that had risen to 8,000-10,000 tonnes: figures that do not fit with a continuous decline.

The end too is told in two ways. For Jervis the iron mines of Traversella closed in 1849, when the Traversella blast furnace went out, because of the rising price of charcoal and of free trade with English iron. Costa, instead, documents work until 1883, when the last owner declared only 17,000 rubbi, and the closure the year after; Berattino records 161 tonnes of magnetite in 1883, the last year of activity. Torti writes that the mines closed in 1884, but the figure is partly covered by a stain uncertain. Whether the blast furnace that went out in 1849 was the same as the Prelle furnace, which Berattino documents only from 1794 to 1799, the sources read do not say uncertain.

Sources: Costa et al. 2019, pp. 10-11; Berattino 1988, pp. 177, 285, 317; Jervis 1873, pp. 121-122, 124; Torti 1973, p. 6

The name of the baduj

The name "baduj" appears in the title of Berattino's 1988 book, Le miniere dei «Baduj» di Traversella, The mines of the "Baduj" of Traversella. In the introduction to the book Domenico Forchino writes that the inhabitants of Traversella bear the nickname "BADUJ" from the name of a tool, the "hollowed stick 'badul'", which was used to carry the containers: it is the "touch of colour" with which Berattino opens the book probable. Pedron gives a similar explanation, without citing sources: the miner was called badula, from the name of a wooden shoulder pole for carrying the buckets of ore probable. Costa and Chiappino do not explain the name uncertain. The explanation of the stick is therefore probable, according to Forchino, but no old document read confirms it probable.

Sources: Costa et al. 2019, p. 23; Berattino 1988, introduction; Pedron 2018; Chiappino 2010, p. 30

Other dates in dispute

• The Traversella cableway: Costa dates it to 1938, Berattino to 1939, with a question mark in the caption of the figure uncertain.
• The Riondello landslide: for Beratto the catastrophe is of 29 June 1819; for Despines the landslide begins at midnight on 29 June and the total collapse comes on 2 July. Torti dates it to 1816, but the details match those of 1819: his date is probably wrong uncertain. Jervis speaks of "very grave danger for the miners", Pedron of "only material consequences" uncertain; in the municipal archive the landslides of 1807 and 1819 do not seem to have caused any deaths.
• The tax of 5 denari per rubbo: Costa gives it for 1753 in the 2019 article and for 1723 in the 2022 presentation uncertain.
• The edict on tunnels that meet: 1787 for Torti and Costa, 9 December 1797 for Beratto uncertain.
• The price of the flotation patent: 225 pounds for Costa, 25 for Torti, who does not give his source probable.
• FIAT: buys the mines in 1914 according to Costa; the museum's website says it was the owner from 1913 uncertain.
• The museum: created in 2007 according to Costa; according to CRESTA the exhibition opened as early as 2005 and in 2007 the Municipality established the Museo civico, the civic museum uncertain.

Sources: Costa et al. 2019, pp. 9-10, 12, 17; Berattino 1988, pp. 140, 249-250, 263; Beratto (thesis), pp. 26-27; Torti 1973, pp. 4, 8; Jervis 1873, p. 121; Pedron 2018; Costa, Garabello 2022, slides 20, 23; Museo della Miniera website, «Il comprensorio minerario»; CRESTA, online page