Autonomous Province of Bozen - South Tyrol – Abteilung Generic

Culture » Fine arts / architecture »

Ladinia

The three art schools in Val Gardena (Ortisei), Val di Fassa (Pozza) and Cortina d’Ampezzo increase the value of artistic expression in the Ladin Valleys. All three were founded to transmit the knowledge and the artistic bent that had appeared and which developed over the centuries in the Ladin territory. While the art school in the Gardena Valley concentrated on the production of wooden toys, which have been exported to all parts of the world, the art school of Ampezzo focused on filigree work and the one of Val di Fassa on painting.
In the Ladin valleys sacral art centres around the Church and its smaller and bigger buildings. The year in which the first church was built is not known: there is practically no evidence about the period of time which preceded the year 1000 AD and even the first successive buildings are not certain. For example, there is some information about the construction of a church around the year 1030 AD in Pieve di Marebbe (La Pli de Mareo), but it is not known where and how it was built. The first place of worship dedicated to Saint Juliana in the Fassa Valley can be traced down to the period before 798, but there is no more detailed information about that one either. The majority of the churches was built in the medieval times and the old Romanesque churches –provided that there were some– were replaced by Gothic ones which are still today partly recognisable because of their steeple. In the following centuries those churches were enlarged, restored and adapted to the customs of the times. The churches of Badia, Cortina d’Ampezzo and Ortisei were all three built towards the end of the 12th century or in the first years of the 13th century. Nowadays they appear in a Baroque style: very richly painted and decorated, with a lot of ornamental plasterwork.
Next to the churches of the villages also many chapels have to be mentioned as well as the small altars and wayside shrines in the viles or on the paths that the people used to reach the village centres. Often they contain valuable paintings, statues of some patron saint or smaller sculptures. Just think of the chapel of Al Bagn in La Valle or of the capital of Col dala Pelda in Selva. Also the mountain chapels are of great value: just think of the Santa Croce Chapel in Badia which shows frescos that appeared after the restoration in 1984.
Next to sacral art also some noble residences have been preserved such as the Andraz Castle in Livinallongo, the castle of Santa Cristina, the Colz Castle in La Villa or the Tor Castle in San Martino in Badia. While the Andraz and the Tor castles were already built around 1200 as residences for the vicar of the bishop of Bressanone, that of La Villa was built in 1537 and the one of Santa Cristina in 1620. The latter was built by the family of Count Wolkenstein after the dilapidation of the Val Castle. The castles Andraz and Tor were both taken into public ownership: the restoration and the museum of the first is not yet finished, while the second was inaugurated as museum in 2001: it is the most modern museum in the Ladin territory. The other two castles are in private ownership.
The most typical architectonical feature of the Ladin valleys is represented by the viles. They are very well inserted in the soil, half way up the slopes and formed by several houses and barns together with the most necessary infrastructures: e.g. an oven to bake some bread, a fountain, or a dryer for broad beans. They are very interesting because of their architectonic style: the mushroom-shaped ones (with the base in stone and the upper part in wood) which have Gothic influences as well as those in stone which recall the Romanesque period.
As far as the art of painting is concerned, the frescos that are displayed on the outer walls of some houses have to be mentioned. For example the pharmacy in Cortina d’Ampezzo, also known as “Ciasa de i Pupe”, is very richly painted: the paintings mostly represent allegories about craft industry, art and music. Another very beautiful fresco can be admired always in Cortina d’Ampezzo on the Cassa Rurale, the local bank. It shows sibyls and their oracles.
Furthermore, there are some monuments that remind important personalities for the Ladin valleys: in Antermoia, for instance, there is the monument of Vijo Pupp, in Ortisei the one of Johann Baptist Purger, in Pieve di Livinallongo, in front of the church, there is a monument of Catarina Lanz and in Cortina d’Ampezzo there is the monument of the famous mountain guide Angelo Dibona.