​​Rovereto Municipal Library - Fr, 02.01.2015
​​This morning we visited the municipal library of Rovereto to look at the "local section".
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​​Notes

  • ​​the library is super busy and surely a good place to announce future activities, mostly to students and elderly people reading newspapers, but also migrants using computers
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​​Stuff we found

  • ​​Castellano: tobacco was cultivated in this area, which later was transformed into cigarettes in a factory in Rovereto; the women drying the leaves where secretly putting away tobacco for themselves and their friends;
  • ​​Adige: the river has been rectified in 5 places along the Vallagarina/Adige Valley - at Nomi the biggest intervention has been made
  • ​​found an interesting book by architect and urbanist Alberto Cecchetto - published in 1998, he mapped the resources, winds, water etc. in the Trentino region and reflects on how this influences the future urbanistic plans for the area > here a lot of know-how and observation is brought together and he reflects on how the built environment of the region has long been planned around using and creating favourable micro-climates etc.
  • ​​Piazzo: we found a book from 1993 presenting a project to recover the old silk-spinning factory located in the village next to ours
  • ​​Also interesting book on Terragnolo, with notes taken by a local priest, reporting the hard work that dominated these areas. Most striking, the people as 'carriers', like having to carry towards the terraced fields the earth that was washed away by the rain during heavy thunderstorms.
  • ​​Mid/end of 1800: Pellagra heavily affected people in Terragnolo but also many other villages. 
  • ​​In general, every major village or area is represented by a local history book. But as a first impression, these books (Volano, Besenello, Comun Comunale) look quite 'territorial' in the way they focus primarily on one village. However, it is difficult to think that the situation of Terragnolo was very different from other nearby valleys
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​​Action points

  • ​​are people still cultivating tobacco?
  • ​​find out if the silk-spinning factory has been restructured and is accessible;
  • ​​get the book of Alberto Cecchetto to read thoroughly as it seems to connect to our idea of know-how, skills and also ideas of bioregion and permaculture;
  • ​​get maps of the valley: before the rivers was rectified and before the swamps have been cleared;
  • ​​take the time to dig into these local history books. Here it is maybe not so important who ruled these lands in the different periods, but how people lived, what economies were present, how the territory was shaped accordingly, what kind of property rights were in place, etc.
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