Ornavasso

Ornavasso
Country	Italy
region	Piedmont
province	Verbano-Cusio-Ossola  (VB)
Coordinates	45 ° 58 ′  N , 8 ° 24 ′  E Coordinates: 45 ° 58 ′ 0 ″  N , 8 ° 24 ′ 0 ″  E
height	215  m slm
surface	25 km²
Residents	3,418 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	137 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	28877
prefix	+39 0323
ISTAT number	103051
Popular name	Ornavassesi
Patron saint	Nicholas of Myra ( December 6th )
Website	Ornavasso

Ossola Valley in the Piedmont region

Sanctuary of the Madonna del Boden

Parish Church of San Nicolao

Madonna della Guardia church and watchtower

Old farmhouse in Migiandone

Entrance to the marble quarry

The Pallavolo Ornavasso volleyball team

Ornavasso ( Lombard Urnavass, Walser German Urnafasch ) is a municipality in the Italian province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (VB), Piedmont region .

geography

The total area of ​​the municipality is 25 km². Ornavasso also includes the Migiandone faction.

The neighboring municipalities are Anzola d'Ossola , Casale Corte Cerro , Gravellona Toce , Loreglia , Mergozzo , Premosello-Chiovenda and Valstrona .

history

prehistory

In the years 1890 and 1891 Enrico Bianchetti discovered two necropolises in the districts of San Bernardo (initially 165 graves; another 16 were found in 1941 and 1952) and In Persona (165 graves). The graves, mainly burials, are dated to the period between the second century BC and the 1st century AD and are associated with the Roman- influenced culture of the Lepontier . Both necropolises must have belonged to a single large village in which sheep was raised and timber was built. The village was on the road that led from Lake Maggiore (at that time still reaching as far as Gravellona Toce , where port facilities were found) in the direction of the Alpine passes. The finds are both Celtic and Italian and may come from the Golasecca culture , as indicated by gyroscopic bottles and fibulae . On the so-called "Latumarus vase", which comes from the necropolis of San Bernardo and can be dated to the 1st century BC, there are inscriptions in the Lepontic - Ligurian alphabet. The materials found are shown in the Museo del paesaggio in Verbania .

Middle Ages: settlement by the Walser

In 1275 the place was owned by the noble Joncelmus von Ornavasso, who at that time received the vice dominion of Naters in what is now the Swiss Wallis as an episcopal fief. As a result, Ornavasso and the neighboring village of Migiandone Walser settled down, which is why the two villages formed a German- speaking island well into the 19th century . The Ornavasser are said to have made a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in Glis as early as the 19th century , and according to Albert Schott they “took every dead person to Glys for funeral ago and paid church tax there [around 1840]”. In Naters, the Urnafass tower is a reminder of the former connection between the Valais town and Ornavasso. A number of Walser German field names and other locality names have survived to this day, such as Santuario della Madonna del Boden "Boden, evenes piece of land", Trenghi "Tränke", Breitawong "Breitwang, broad slope" Farambudu "Farnboden", il village "Dorf" il Bach «Bach» or la Grobo «Graben».

In the 14th century, the Walsers from Ornavasso acted as suppliers of marble for the construction of the Milan Cathedral , as a document from 1392 stated: "Videtur quod ad præsens sit emenda a teutonicis de Ornavaxio cuncta quantitas marmoris".

Modern times

During the Second World War, the Partisan formation Divisione Valtoce with its characteristic blue handkerchief was founded in Ornavasso. After the overthrow of the partisan republic of Ossola , it was reorganized under the name 2a Valtoce and integrated into the Raggruppamento Di Dio .

population

Population development
year	1861	1871	1881	1901	1921	1931	1951	1971	1991	2001	2011	2017	2018
Residents	2388	2458	2436	2664	2469	2174	2645	3018	3302	3231	3407	3432	3432

Sports

The Pallavolo Ornavasso volleyball team won the championship in series B2 in 2009 and rose to series B1, where it won the Coppa Italia in 2011 and 2012 . In 2012 she was promoted to Serie A2, 2013 to Serie A1. Shortly before the start of the 2014-2015 season, the team was excluded from the championship due to financial problems.

Attractions

• The pilgrimage church of Madonna del Boden is the extension of an oratory that was built on the remains of an earlier chapel. She is known for a mural of the Blessed Virgin that was venerated by the residents of the area. According to tradition, a shepherdess from Ornavasso fell asleep on the night of September 7, 1528 after she had brought her sheep to pasture. When she woke up, all the sheep had run away. When she fell into a chasm in search of them, Our Lady led her with the help of a light that came from the floor of the chapel to the subsequent oratory, where she found her sheep gathered. Since then, on September 8th, the feast of Our Lady of the Floor or of Miracles is celebrated. The oratory was expanded for the pilgrims in the middle of the 17th century and added a choir, two chapels, the sacristy and a portico. The two side aisles and the redesign of the altar date back to the middle of the 18th century. The increasingly faded painting of the original chapel was replaced by a 30 cm high statuette depicting the crowned Madonna.
• Sanctuary of the Madonna della Guardia: the legend tells of a mute girl who led the sheep to pasture for her stepmother every day. In front of the image of the virgin she found the bread for the day, and one day she also regained language there. The building was started according to a project by the Milanese architect Attilio Arrigoni, but was completed in a simplified form. Work on the octagonal Greek cross structure began in 1676 and was completed in 1718. The choir, presbytery and elliptical vault were completed between 1718 and 1722.
• The Torre di Guardia is an old watchtower that was built in the early 14th century by the Barbavara d'Ornavasso family, feudal lords in the Ossola Valley. It was used to send out optical signals by means of fire signals to warn the population of attacks by the Valais raging in the valley. Today it functions as a bell tower.
• The Cava di marmo (marble quarry) is 1.5 km from the center in the direction of Madonna del Boden. He provided the raw material for the construction of the facade of the Certosa di Pavia , the covering of the columns in the octagon of the Cathedral of Pavia , the Arch of Peace in Milan and a small part of the Milan Cathedral . The historical part of the quarry is open to the public and also serves as a place for musical events.
• The Linea Cadorna was a military fortification system built during the First World War to protect the northern border of Italy from a possible Austrian attack by Switzerland. The fortified lines protected the Italian area between the Great St. Bernard in the west and the Valtellina in the east.
• The Museo della Resistenza Alfredo di Dio, opened in 1988, is located in the center of the city in a building that was given to the city of Ornavasso free of charge by the veterans of the partisan detachment Alfredo Di Dio . It shows documents of the resistance and provides information about the Republic of Ossola.

Daughters and sons of the church

• Edoardo Piana Agostinetti (1896–1976), auxiliary bishop in Novara
• Elisa Longo Borghini (* 1991), racing cyclist

literature

• Josef Bielander: Remnants from the Walser period in Ornavasso. In: Walliser Jahrbuch. 1954, pp. 26-30.
• Valerio Cantamessi: Note storiche sui cognomi walser di Ornavasso. Ornavasso 1992.
• Valerio Cantamessi: As vir saghen. Dizionario della lingua walser e della toponomastica di Ornavasso. Ornavasso 2004.
• Paolo Crosa Lenz: I Walser di Ornavasso in sette secoli di lavoro. 1979.
• Paolo Crosa Lenz: Decadenza del dialetto Walser a ornavasso et elementi redisui. In: Enrico Rizzi: La Questione Walser. Atti della prima Giornata internazionale di studio. places - 4 Giugno 1983. Anzola d'Ossola 1984, pp. 149-160.
• Paolo Crosa Lenz: Urnafasch. Lingua e cultura walser a Ornavasso. Meteriali per la didattica. Ornavasso 2002-2003.
• Paolo Corsa Lenz: Storia e memoria della piu singolare colonia walser delle Alpi. 2004.
• Carlo Errare: Sulla toponomastica del territorio di Ornavasso. In: Scritti di geografia e storia della geografia pubblicati in onore di G. Della Vedova. Firenze 1908.
• Marco Gonella: Una colonia walser: Ornavasso. Milan 1984–1985.
• Fritz Gysling : Fossils of the Walsermundart from Ornavasso. In: Studia Neophilologica 40, 1968, pp. 386-413.
• Konrad Huber: Ornavasso. Decay and fall of a German-speaking island. In: Paul Zinsli , Oskar Bandle , Peter Dalcher , Kurt Meyer , Rudolf Trüb , Hans Wanner : Sprachleben der Schweiz. Bern 1963, pp. 197-208.
• Renzo Mortarotti: I Walser nella Val d'Ossola. Le colonie tedesco-vallesane di Macugnaga, Formazza, Agaro, Salecchio, Ornavasso e Migiandone. Domodossola 1979.
• Paul Zinsli : Walser folklore in Switzerland, Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein and Piedmont. Heritage, existence, essence. Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart 1968 (numerous new editions), p. 264 f. and passim.

Web links

Commons : Ornavasso  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ornavasso (Italian) on tuttitalia.it
• Ornavasso (Italian) on comuni-italiani.it
• Ornavasso (Italian) on piemonte.indettaglio.it/ita/comuni
• Ornavasso on de.lagomaggiore.net, accessed November 27, 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Quoted from Paul Zinsli: Walser Volkstum in Switzerland, Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein and Piedmont. Heritage, existence, essence. Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart 1968 (numerous new editions), p. 264 f.