House Museum of the Upper Cervo Valley

The experience

The environment of the Upper Cervo Valley (in dialect the Bürsch, the den, the house) retains its incomparable specificity, strongly marked by the presence of man and his centuries-old events, characterized by natural hostility (soil stingy with products and few plateaus suitable for pasture), by the qualified emigration of men – skilled stonemasons-masons who specialized in working the only wealth that the land offered them, Syenite, a variety of fine granite, ideal for construction, thanks to them appreciated all over the world – and the consequent domestic and rural economy entrusted exclusively to women. With the desire to re-evaluate a vast cultural heritage that seemed forgotten and to propose to the compatriots a reflection on the family and collective events that have contributed to qualifying the territory, in the 60s of the last century a small group of people collected written and oral testimonies, photographs, iconographic materials and objects related to the daily life and work of the Valit and set up an exhibition at the sanctuary of San Giovanni Battista d’Andorno (1964), starting a successful ethnographic review that had unexpected breadth and dimensions. In the wake of that far-sighted research and awareness work and under the aegis of the Mountain Community of the Upper Cervo Valley “La Bürsch”, established in 1973, the House Museum of the Upper Cervo Valley was born in 1987, a worthy setting for a material and intangible culture that makes the Bürsch unique in the Alpine panorama. Since 2000 it has been one of the fifteen cells of the Ecomuseum of Biella and actively participates in its activities. The House Museum of the Upper Cervo Valley is located in a traditional house in Rosazza, of eighteenth-century layout but completely renovated in 1876, in which more than fifteen rooms, distributed over four floors to which the attic must be added, allow an exhibition articulated by living environments and themes: the stable, the kitchen, the processing of syenite, the ancient professional schools for construction, the workers’ mutual aid societies, the centuries-old emigration of men, the strong role of women.

Managed by the Cultural Volunteer Association that started it, the House Museum immediately presented itself as a center for the elaboration and dissemination of local culture open to the contribution and collaboration of institutions and individual citizens, as well as a reference point for broader thematic itineraries, such as those, complete with leaflets, on public works financed by the philanthropist Federico Rosazza Pistolet and on popular religiosity. Thanks to the commendable contribution of the “Valëtte an Ĝipoun” group, in synergy with which the House Museum has been operating since the beginning, the culture of Bürsch has also been promoted outside the Biella area. Independently or together with other institutions, the House Museum has promoted or taken part in various exhibitions and given birth to some publications, all edited by Gianni Valz Blin, tireless President of the Association for more than twenty years. Strengthened by the constant support of volunteers, the House Museum has evolved over the years, enriching its collections, which today boast more than a thousand objects (not counting the dozens of vintage photographs that accompany the visitor during the visit), and opening new environments to the public.