Terragnolo

Terragnolo
Country	Italy
region	Trentino-South Tyrol
province	Trento  (TN)
Coordinates	45 ° 53 '  N , 11 ° 9'  E Coordinates: 45 ° 52 '44 "  N , 11 ° 9' 8"  E
height	785  m slm
surface	39.4 km²
Residents	699 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	18 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	38060
prefix	0464
ISTAT number	022193
Popular name	Terragnolesi
Website	www.comune.terragnolo.tn.it

Terragnolo (German deprecated: glue or Laimtal ) is an Italian municipality ( comune ) in Trentino in the region Trentino-Alto Adige and has 699 inhabitants (31 December 2019). It was a German language island until the 19th century .

location

Parish church Peter and Paul in the district of Piazza

The municipality is located about 21 kilometers south-southeast of Trento in the Val Terragnolo of the same name . It belongs to the Vallagarina valley community and borders directly on the province of Vicenza ( Veneto ). The administrative headquarters are in the district of Piazza . The neighboring municipalities are Folgaria , Rovereto and Trambileno in Trentino and the two municipalities Laghi and Posina in the province of Vicenza .

Administrative division

The municipality of Terragnolo includes 33 fractions : S. Nicolò, Fontanelle, Valduga, Valgrande, Perini, Piazza (municipal seat), Dosso, Maureri, Rovri, Pedrazzi, Peltreri, Puechem, Pergheri, Stedileri, Valle, Zencheri, Castello, Croce, Costa, Camperi, Geroli, Pinterreno, Ghesteri, Sega, Scottini, Pornal, Potrich, Dieneri, Zoreri, Soldati, Baisi, Incapo and Campi. Almost all fractions are on the orographically right side of the valley with the exception of Ghesteri, Geroli and Pinterreno, which are on the orographically left side of the valley.

history

First settlement

An ax blade from the Bronze Age found in the 1920s at Passo della Borcola is the first human trace that can be detected in parish prayer. Up until the Middle Ages, however, the valley seems to have been frequented only occasionally by hunters and shepherds. A few sparse coin finds from the Roman era do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about a permanent settlement by the Romans.

The settlement by German-speaking settlers in the 13th century is documented. The first written mention of Terregnolo comes from 1263.

The settlers brought into the valley by the prince-bishops of Trento , starting with Friedrich von Wangen , and their vassals the Lizzana and the Castelbarco , first cleared the numerous valley terraces and built their farms there. In order to save arable land, these courtyards were usually built upwards and concentrated several areas under a single roof, such as stables, business and living areas as well as haystacks or other storage areas directly under the roof. From these individual courtyards , in the form of vertically structured single - roof courtyards , hamlets emerged over the course of time, and from them the current fractions.

Early modern age

After Rovereto was taken by the Venetians in 1416 , Terragnolo also came under the influence of the Serenissima and was subordinate to the Venetian Podestà of Rovereto. For Venice the valley was of interest because of the abundance of wood, so that the residents were granted limited freedom in agriculture and forestry and they were partially exempt from taxes and duties.

In the middle of the 15th century, the municipality of Terragnolo consisted of less than 20 families with about 100 inhabitants. The timber trade carried out over the Sturzbach Leno, in the German Leimbach or Laimbach, led to economic and social processes of change, which was particularly evident in the slow assimilation of the German-speaking dialect with Italian. This language, known as slambrot , was spoken well into the 19th century. Place and field names similar to German, but also individual common words, particularly with reference to the natural environment, such as the forest, still bear witness to this past.

Another phenomenon that characterized the valley until the 20th century, emigration , also contributed to assimilation . The timber trade, controlled by outsiders, did not lead to any significant improvement in local living conditions. Rather, in the community based on subsistence farming , the concentration on the timber industry and the slow demographic increase resulted in bottlenecks in the production of food, which in particular led to seasonal emigration.

In 1509, after Venice withdrew as a result of the defeat in the Battle of Agnadello, the valley fell to the Archdukes of Austria . Maximilian I confirmed the rights and duties granted by Venice to the residents. In the 16th century, the first forms of a valley community, the Regola, emerged, as was the case in other valleys in Trentino. With the Regola, an attempt was made to improve the harsh living conditions in the valley through the administration and management of communal property and natural resources, which primarily concerned alpine pasture and forestry, but also the right to drift on the Leno. In this sense, a municipal statute was passed in the first half of the 17th century.

Modern

The community was only marginally touched by the changes in world history until the 20th century, mainly because of its isolated location. The only thing worth mentioning is the passage of Prince Eugen's troops in 1701 during the War of the Spanish Succession . In the 19th century, life was still characterized by old production and working methods. The valley remained excluded from the industrial revolution, which increased the pre-existing social and economic gap with the Adige Valley, above all with the city of Rovereto. A number of events led to a further deterioration in living conditions in that century, including the storms of autumn 1882 that hit forestry and the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Trentino in the 1890s, which completely destroyed the livestock in Terragnolo . Due to this, the seasonal emigration increased especially to Bohemia and Silesia for the local railway construction. Pellagra was also noticeable . A deficiency disease caused by inadequate nutrition, which mainly affected children in Terragnolo and which attempts were made to stop with the introduction of school meals in 1905. Even new sources of income, such as viticulture, which was intensified after the phylloxera infestation in Hungary , or the breeding of silkworms, did little to change the poor, backward conditions. In contrast, the job opportunities offered by the Austro-Hungarian military in the 1910s in the construction of the fortifications on the plateaus , such as the Serrada plant on the northern upper edge of the valley , and the necessary infrastructures, only had a temporary effect .

Commemorative plaque for the soldiers of the First World War from the municipality of Terragnolo

When the First World War broke out , all men between the ages of 21 and 42 who were fit for military service were drafted and sent to the Eastern Front , where most of the community's almost 100 war dead fell in the first months of the war. The women and old people who stayed at home were used for fortification work along the Italian border. Two days after the Italian entry into the war on May 23, 1915, the valley was completely evacuated and the residents were taken to the Mitterndorf refugee camp in Bohemia and Moravia and Upper Austria , while the age groups suitable for military service were extended to include men aged 16 to 60. As the war continued, camp life in Mitterndorf was increasingly characterized by hunger and hardship. At the end of the war, the community had more than 450 dead, including over 160 children under the age of five, in the Mitterndorf camp.

During the First World War, the valley was initially occupied by Italian troops in 1915. The Austro-Hungarian army had withdrawn to easier defendable positions on the upper northern edge of the valley, which had already been prepared in the months before the outbreak of war. Until spring 1916 there were no major actions in the valley. In May 1916, during the spring offensive , the valley was recaptured by the Austro-Hungarian army within a few days. Until the end of the war, the valley remained behind the front line and served as the logistical center of the south adjoining front on Monte Pasubio .

After the end of the war, the inhabitants found a devastated valley. A third of the arable land had been blocked by military facilities such as trenches, artillery positions, cable cars or military cemeteries such as the military cemetery in Geroli . The livestock population, which was already low before the war, had almost been wiped out. The houses destroyed or damaged and looted. Even years after the end of the war, duds still claimed deaths, especially among the so-called recuperanti , those residents who collected or sold reusable objects and materials for their own use on the former battlefields, thus inventing a new line of business. Nevertheless, the reconstruction turned out to be slow and difficult. Agricultural production no longer reached the levels before 1914. The result was an increasing rural exodus, especially to Rovereto, or emigration. From this point on, the population decline became more and more noticeable.

Neither the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy after the First World War nor the subsequent seizure of power by the fascists initially had an impact on everyday life in the community. At the end of the 1920s, however, the regime was criticized by individuals due to the continuing economic problems, to which intimidating measures and the first short-term arrests were responded. When taxes were again increased in 1932, this fueled the critical attitude in the population. During the Second World War, the valley was spared from warlike events, and in contrast to the residents of the neighboring municipality of Posina to the east, they did not participate in the Resistance .

The demographic decline continued after 1945. From 1921 to 2011, the number of inhabitants fell by almost 70% within 90 years, with the decline from the 2000s mainly due to age and not, as before, to rural exodus or emigration. The age pyramid shows a strong demographic imbalance in favor of the older population, so it is especially retired people who return to their home community, while the younger generations are more inclined to turn their backs on it.

Agriculture, which was once traditionally practiced, is now only practiced in leisure time, mostly as a hobby. Many of the terraces formerly used for agriculture are no longer maintained, are overgrown and half decayed. Forestry was only of marginal importance at the end of the 19th century. Today the forest has repossessed former meadows and arable land. Only a third of employees work in the municipality, while two thirds commute to work in the Adige Valley every day.

Population development

year	1921	1931	1951	1961	1971	1981	1991	2001	2011
Residents	2,443	2,293	1,982	1,822	1,346	1,016	813	749	755

Source: ISTAT

Parish partnership

Terragnolo, together with other communities in the Vallagarina Valley Community, has a partnership with the Brazilian community of Bento Gonçalves in the state of Rio Grande do Sul . Numerous families from southern Trentino, including the municipality of Terragnolo, emigrated to Bento Goncales in the 1870s.

Web links

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

literature

• Bruno Bais: Storia della Valle di Terragnolo. Ricerche e documenti . La Grafica, Mori 1986.
• Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo . Nuova grafica Cierre, Verona 1990.
• Giulia Mastrelli Anzilotti: Toponomastica trentina: i nomi delle località abitate. Provincia autonoma di Trento. Servizio beni librari e archivistici, Trient 2003 ISBN 978-88-86602-56-3
• Adriano Rigotti: Lagarina romana: storia antica e archeologia del territorio dal II sec. AC al V sec. DC Osiride, Rovereto 2007 ISBN 978-88-7498-064-2 ( PDF )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
2. ↑ Municipal statute in Italian (PDF; 248 kB), accessed on February 28, 2018.
3. ↑ Bruno Bais: Storia della Valle di Terragnolo. Ricerche e documenti p. 28
4. ^ Adriano Rigotti: Lagarina romana: storia antica e archeologia del territorio dal II sec. AC al V sec. DC p. 338
5. ^ Adriano Rigotti: Lagarina romana: storia antica e archeologia del territorio dal II sec. AC al V sec. DC p. 338
6. ↑ Giulia Mastrelli Anzilotti: Toponomastica trentina: i nomi delle località abitate p. 76
7. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo pp. 68-69
8. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo p. 136
9. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo, pp. 74-75
10. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo p. 75
11. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo, pp. 85-88
12. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo pp. 95-97
13. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo p. 99
14. ^ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo p. 104
15. ↑ Giampietro Braga: Le valli del Leno: Vallarsa e valle di Terragnolo pp. 145-146
16. ↑ Community partnership Villa Lagarina Bento Goncales (Italian) accessed on November 6, 2018