Mount Camiolo (Camiöl in the local dialect) is a mountain in the Brescia and Garda Prealps belonging to the Tombea-Manos group whose peak Camiolo, also called Pesòc, reaches 1,235 m.a.s.l.
Physical geography Located in the municipal territory of Magasa and Valvestino, it is part of the Alto Garda Bresciano Park. The place has been, until recent decades after the abandonment of mountain agriculture by the last farmers, an area of mountain pasture and fodder cultivation, and also an area dedicated to cheese production.
Physical description Among the local people of the Vestino Valley, the mountain of Camiolo is a rather large territory and denotes an articulated set of peaks, passes, paths, waterholes, agricultural lands, forests, and localities surrounding the mountain itself. Almost always, "Camiolo" refers not so much to the peak from which it does not actually take its name, called Pesòc, but rather refers to the area as a whole in the extensive meaning described. The mountain is characterized by vast wooded areas and grasslands with rural lands used in the past for growing fodder and raising livestock. Commonly it is divided by locals into three geographical zones: the summit, middle and basal zones, and the localities or rustic lands are usually derived from anthroponyms, that is, they take the name or nickname of the individuals or families who owned them.
The summit is called Camiolo di Cima and includes, starting from north to south, the locality of the OlvaThe place name is said to derive from the female name of the former owner. property, the properties known as the Cioaröi and Bendoi estates, the ruins of the property known as the Fienile del Fö (beech tree), the Bocca Croce pass (1,061 m.), the ApeneThe place name is said to derive from the verbal misspelling of the word for nearby Mount Pine. property, the PineMario Trebeschi, I conti di Lodrone e la divisione di monti e pascoli in Valvestino, in Memorie dell'Ateneo di Salò, vol. VI, year 1994, pp.85–121. In a parchment of 1511 the mountain was so called, and on its apex, on a large boulder, a cross was engraved, a sacred pact between the men of Turano and Magasa, which sanctioned the land division of the mountain. The toponym is said to derive from the Latin "pinetum," meaning pine forest, and would thus indicate a summit vegetated by this shrub, especially Scots pine, which was exploited for the extraction of plant resin and black pitch. mountain with its 1,225 m, the Casì estate formerly owned by Legate Marzadri, Dosso Tondo, the Pesòc estate, Cima Camiolo, the summit of Mt. 1. 235 meters and the Prà Snidio property; the middle zone is called Camiolo di Mezzo, Mess in the local dialect, with the two Pir estates and the Fabbrica estate built in 1877 by Filippo Viani, while the lower part, Camiolo di Fondo with the wooded locality of Paüe in the northeastern part, the localities of fondo Fornaci,So named because in centuries past there were kilns for the production of clay tiles and various bricks. fondo Massa dei Bernàrc, fondo Massa dei Boter, fondo MassaThe toponym Massa of Latin origin but also adopted by the Lombards in the successions, would stand for the complex of several agricultural lands, managed by different families but owned by the Church or other authorities. dei Mangane, the ruins of fondo Sebaghe, the ruins of fondo Vianì, the ruins of fondo Celi and fondo Mangana.
There is no presence throughout its territory of any water table, and in the past each cottage farm was used for food or for watering livestock from cisterns or rainwater pools. Supporting the past agricultural economy are the ruins of kilns devoted to the production of lime and roofing tiles and numerous charcoal farmyards, known as "giài."
The pass of Bocca alla Croce or Croce di Camiolo is a historical and legendary area of the Vestino Valley, located at an elevation of 1,061 m. It separates the main ridge of Mount Camiolo from the Droanello valley with that of the Magasino stream and can be reached by car, on a dirt road and with a transit permit, from the town of Magasa or Valvestino and there is a landing pad for a rescue helicopter. The toponym derives from the intersection of the four trails and the width of the pass that connect them to the north with Magasa, Mt. Mangà, Mt. Gosauer, to the south with Camiolo di Cima to the southeast with Droane, Tavagnone, and to the northeast with the Fornello-Cima Rest-Cadria. The history of the Vestino Valley made by merchants, peasants, horsemen, charcoal-burners and bandits of the 16th and 17th centuries, by the armies of the Venetian Republic in 1526, by Garibaldi's army in 1866 and by the Italian army in 1915 passed through here.
Origin of the name The origin of the name is completely unknown and may derive from the medieval name "Camiolus," a dialectal alteration of the medieval Latin word "cameolus," with the meaning of "cameo", indicating the owner of the mountain. The name was also in use especially among Slavic peoples, also as an altered form of the name "Camillus." The similarity with the surname is also yet to be proved, in fact, according to some, this would derive from the archaic dialect term "camiolo" meaning winemaker. Historically, the cultivation of vines on the slopes of the mountain is not documented although it was practiced with certainty, until the end of the 19th century, not far away, in Turano, in the locality of Ganone and in Ranch, in the municipality of Magasa.
The name of Mount Camiolo first appears in a parchment dated October 31, 1511 when representatives of the communities of the Vestino Valley proceeded to its land partition under the auspices of Count Bartolomeo Lodron.Gianpaolo Zeni, Al servizio dei Lodron, Comune e Biblioteca di Magasa, Bagnolo Mella 2007.Mario Trebeschi, I conti di Lodrone e la divisione di monti e pascoli in Valvestino, in Memorie dell'Ateneo di Salò, vol. VI, anno 1994, pp.85–121. The mountain is also mentioned in the municipal statutes of Magasa of 1589 in an article that provided for the prohibition of anyone to cut wood in the surroundings of the said mountainGianpaolo Zeni, Gli statuti di Magasa del 1589, in Passato Presente, Gruppo culturale "Il Chiese" di Storo, Trento, 1997. and in a report of the Venetian superintendent of Salò of 1613 regarding the road system near the borders of the Serenissima.
In the "Atlas Tyrolensis" by cartographer Peter Anich, printed in Vienna in 1774, it is referred to as Camiol along with the nearby Mount Tavagnone and Mount Pinedo, while Arnaldo Gnagna in his "Vocabolario topografico-toponomastico della provincia di Brescia," published in 1939, reports on page 124, the peak with the plural term of Camiole and the mountainside to the north as Camiola.
The Camiolo peak also known locally as Pesòc is a term that seems to derive, as with nearby Mount Pizzocolo, from the Germanic word "spitz" meaning pointy, pointed, and from the Celtic word "higel" meaning an elevation or hill, so the final meaning would be to indicate a mountain with a pointed top, as it actually is.
History
In the past centuries, especially between 1426 and 1796, given its strategic position on the edge of the state border between the Republic of Venice and the Prince-Bishopric of Trent, the area of Mount Camiolo elicited in the Venetian superintendents of Salò a nagging concern about any possible enemy movement that could threaten the Salò Riviera through the passes or paths from the Vestino Valley. Thus the name of the mountain is mentioned in the report that superintendent Melchior Zane, dated June 3, 1621, secretly sent to the Venetian Senate where he stated: "[...] The second pass that enters the municipality of Gargnano is that of Cocca di Pavolon with two roads. One comes from Cadria, a place of the Vestino Valley, passing through the mountain of Risech of the commune of Tignale, with horses and pedestrians, and the other from Camiolo, a place of the said Valley, which goes up the mountain of PinedoThe mountain is located to the south at the entrance to the Droanello valley and is shown on Peter Anich's 1774 "Atlas Tyrolensis" map, and in essence would consist of the vast northern slope, enclosed between Mount Pra-Lignago and Bocchetta della Cocca, which descends into the Droanello stream in the hamlet of Costa in the municipality of Gargnano. The toponym Pinedo, certainly of Venetian origin, would derive from the Scots pine plant and thus indicate a pine forest, where plant resining and the extraction of black pitch was practiced. of the commune of Gargnano and goes into the river of Droane, coming even from the Cocca of Pavolon."
Among the various owners of farmland were the Marzadri family and that of the notorious bandit Eliseo Baruffaldi of Turano. Numerous furnaces were in operation, among them the one activated in 1860 by Carlo Mora of Val di Ledro. In July 1866 during the Third War of Independence it was traversed by a column of Garibaldini from the 2nd Reggimento Volontari Italiani coming from Droane and heading for Magasa,Franz Jaeger, Geschichte des K.k. Infanterie-regiments Georg Prinz von Sachsen, NR.11, 1879 and the same thing happened in June 1915 with infantrymen of the Royal Italian Army.
It has been repeatedly affected along with Mt. Tavagnone and the Droanello valley by devastating forest fires on the southeastern slope, which have impaired its spontaneous forestation of Scots pines, most recently the one of June 28 and 29, 2021.
1511: the great division of pastures and forests of the Camiolo, Tombea, Dos di Sas mountains and the coast of Ve The study carried out by Don Mario Trebeschi, former parish priest of Limone del Garda, of a crumpled and in places illegible parchment preserved in the Parish Archive of Magasa, brought to light the intensive exploitation of alpine pastures, forests, and torrential waters in the Vestino Valley that was often the cause of interminable and bitter quarrels among the six communities, especially in the disputed areas of the Tombea and Camiolo mountains; each of them claimed, more or less strongly, ancient rights of possession or transit, with the result that normal and proper use was compromised by constant trespassing by herds and illegal logging. Therefore in the early 16th century, to avoid worse trouble, it came in two successive stages with the authoritative arbitration of the Lodron counts to a partition of these places among the various villas or "communelli." In fact, these played an active role in the affair, energetically persuading the communities to the final resolution of the problem by signing an agreement that was as balanced as possible, so much so as to completely and definitively satisfy the exacting demands of the many parties involved.
On July 5, 1502, the notary Delaido Cadenelli of Valle di Scalve drew up in Turano under the kitchen porch of the house of a certain Giovanni, a settlement deed between Armo and Magasa for the consensual exploitation of the neighboring Cablone valley (in the document Camlone, located below Mount Cortina). Present were the deputies for Armo: Bartolomeo, son of Faustino, and Stefenello, son of Lorenzo; for Magasa: Antoniolo, son of Giovanni Zeni, and Viano, son of Giovanni Bertolina. Serving as appellate judges were Counts Francesco, Bernardino, and Paride, sons of the aforementioned Giorgio, who went down in the history of local chronicles of the time as men endowed with bloody ferocity.