Villar Pellice

Villar Pellice
Country	Italy
region	Piedmont
Metropolitan city	Turin  (TO)
Coordinates	44 ° 48 '  N , 7 ° 10'  E Coordinates: 44 ° 48 '0 "  N , 7 ° 10' 0"  E
surface	60 km²
Residents	1,056 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	18 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	10060
prefix	0121
ISTAT number	001306
Popular name	Villaresi

Villar Pellice, 2008

Villar Pellice ( Piedmontese ël Vilar or ël Vilar Pélis , Occitan Vilar Pèlis or lu Vilar ) is a municipality with 1056 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the Italian metropolitan city of Turin (TO), Piedmont region .

geography

The municipality is located in the upper reaches of the Val Pellice at about 600 m above sea level. The municipality covers an area of ​​60 km².

The neighboring municipalities are Perrero and Prali (in the northern Germanasca Valley), Angrogna , Bobbio Pellice , Torre Pellice , Rorà , Bagnolo Piemonte and in the south Crissolo (in the Po Valley ).

On the main river of the valley there are extensive stocks of the German tamarisk . For this Myricaria germanica , a 53 hectare protected area ( Stazioni di Myricaria germanica ) was created along the middle Pellice between Bobbio Pellice and Villar Pellice , in which around 70 bird species were found, 40 of which were breeding there, 14 only during the migrations of their respective species published there (as of 2015). Since their habitat is tied to the man-made cultural landscape, the survival of numerous species depends on the preservation of this type of landscape.

history

Abstract rock drawings originate from the Copper or Bronze Age , but also anthropomorphic ones that were discovered near Villar Pellice in the 1990s. They are similar to those in Provence . From the second half of the 1st millennium BC The amber balls were discovered between the roots of a chestnut in Bobbio.

In the Pellice Valley, the Signori of Luserna became one of the most powerful families in the late 11th century. The first mention of their ancestral seat, the castle of Luserna, which stood east of Torre Pellice, took place in 1096. According to the relevant document, it went on March 28, 1069 to Maria, Alemannic origin and daughter of a Hugo, and her people living under Salic law Husband Gosuinus, called Merulus. According to historical tradition, he was the progenitor of the Signori von Luserna. According to other documents, he appears in their vicinity before the death of Margravine Adelheid von Susa († 1091), probably as early as 1063. Her death accelerated the collapse of the Margraviate of Turin , where Merulus was able to secure some scattered parts. Like other local rulers, he took the opportunity to found an independent dynasty , despite retaining the title Vicecomes . This split into three lines in a process that could not be reconstructed, namely those of the Bigliori, the Rorenghi and the Manfredi, which, according to the in-house legend, go back to the corresponding sons of an ancestor. As a result, there were three domains, namely that of Signore di Torre, Signore di Luserna and that of Villar. Accordingly, their entirety was addressed as “domini de Lucerna”, in 1295 with feudal rights over castles, villages and people in Luserna, Bobbio and Villar, Torre, Campiglione , then over the villages of Roletto and Angrogna , three quarters of the village and the people of Bibiana , finally the castle, the village and the people of Bagnolo , who in turn were given to local nobles. The family had received these feudal rights in part from the Bishop of Turin, apart from the tithing in Campiglione, which they claimed was their allod , but especially in 1295 from Philip of Savoy-Achaia .

The integration of the Signoria into the territory of the Savoy had advanced well. Until then, the inclusion of the entire “people” in the legitimation process was in use in their territory in 1159 at the latest. A public meeting confirmed and guaranteed the validity of a document. This was not a right based on a contract, but oral tradition. In the valley, as a document from 1251 shows, the lords claimed not only the fodrum , but also the repayment of the feudal estates in the event of missing heirs, then they monopolized hunting and fishing rights. Their rights extended across the Alpine ridge into the Combe des Charbonniers, but many rights had also been granted.

Petrus Waldes and his followers, the " poor of Lyons ", were excommunicated in Lyons in 1184 and persecuted by the Inquisition from 1231 onwards . The refugees settled in various places in southern France and northern Italy, including before 1300 in the Cottian Alps. Religious refugees from Villar Pellice founded the Waldensian villages Großvillars and Kleinvillars in Württemberg in 1699 . Eleven emigrants from Villar Pellice founded the city of Colonia Valdense in Uruguay in 1856 .

While in the 20th century the places in the lower valley, above all Torre Pellice and Luserna S. Giovanni, initially started a textile manufacture in order to have minerals extracted later, Bobbio and Villar stayed with agricultural production and transhumance . Between 1911 and 2011, not only did the human population halve, but also the number of sheep and goats; however, the number of cattle increased by 40%. The number of families in Vilar and Bobbio who lived on this type of farming fell again particularly dramatically from 210 in 1914 to 18 a century later, i.e. by more than 90%. While before the First World War the average family had only four cattle, and up until the 1960s each family had one of its members as a shepherd, the remaining families became owners of comparatively large herds. The shepherds lease the pastures in the high valleys from the municipalities to this day, with the locals being preferred, while the structural structures are privately owned. The returnees, which became more numerous at the end of the 20th century, were overwhelmingly the children and grandchildren of men and women who had given up livestock farming mostly because of external employment in industry and services, but who were able to reactivate the necessary knowledge and skills from their youth . In contrast to neighboring valleys such as Val Germanasca or Chisone, the proportion of new shepherds remained low. He limited himself to married people.

The increasingly depopulated valleys became retreat areas for partisans, especially after the fall of Mussolini . After September 8, 1943, when the German fascists seized power in Italy, many of the persecuted and soldiers joined the partisans. Il Pioniere, its own underground newspaper, was printed in the Pellice Valley. The best-known activist of the Resistance and refugee aid workers was the engineer Willy Jervis , who was captured by the Germans on March 11, 1944 and shot on August 5, 1944 in Villar Pellice. A memorial stone there, a memorial in Torre Pellice and the library of the resistance with the name Carlo Levi , which is housed in the former SS barracks and contains over 2000 books, remind of the people involved and of the fight of the Resistance.

Population development (1861–2011)

Source: Cambiamenti socio-demografici e trasmissione delle risorse materiali e immateriali: prospettive etnografiche dalle Alpi occidentali italiane

Parish partnership

There is a partnership with the French municipality of Chaleins in the Ain department.

literature

• Andrea Melli: L'emigrazione dalle valli valdesi all'inizio del '900: i casi di Villar Pellice e Luserna San Giovanni , in: La Beidana 25 (1996) 9-18.

Web links

Commons : Villar Pellice  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information at comuni-italiani.it (Italian)

Remarks

1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
2. ↑ Davide Giuliano: Gli uccelli del SIC IT1110033 “Stazioni di Myricaria germanica” , in: Rivista piemontese di Storia naturale 37 (2016) 311–326 ( online , PDF). The abbreviation SIC means Sito di Importanza Comunitaria . Since 2000, 123 of these places of importance for the community have been established in Piedmont.
3. ↑ La preistoria. Cenni sui reperti di epoca preistorica in Val Pellice , InValPellice, with pictures.
4. ↑ Alessandro Barbero: Il dominio dei signori di Luserna sulla Val Pellice (secoli XI-XIII) , in: Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino 91.2 (1993) 657-669, here: p. 657 ( online ).
5. ↑ Alessandro Barbero: Il dominio dei signori di Luserna sulla Val Pellice (secoli XI-XIII) , in: Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino 91.2 (1993) 657-669, here: p. 664.
6. ↑ leo-bw.de , accessed on September 20, 2015
7. ↑ Valentina Porcellana, Giulia Fassio, Pier Paolo Viazzo and Roberta Clara Zanini: Cambiamenti socio-demografici e trasmissione delle risorse materiali e immateriali: prospettive etnografiche dalle Alpi occidentali italiane , in: Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de geographie alpine 104.3 (2016), pp. 6-8 ( online ).
8. ↑ Torre Pellice , in: gedenkorte-europa.eu , Gedenkorte Europa 1939–1945, Study Group German Resistance 1933–1945 .
9. ↑ Cambiamenti socio-demografici e trasmissione delle risorse materiali e immateriali: prospettive etnografiche dalle Alpi occidentali italiane , in: Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de geographie alpine 104.3 (2016), Table 2: Popolazione di Bobbio Pellice, Villar Pellice e Macugnaga, 1861–2011 ( online )