Camerata Cornello

In the thirteenth century a man of this village, Omodeo de Tassis, gathered some of his relatives into a company of couriers in the pay of Venice: thirty-two members, taken on almost always through kinship, and called the Company of the Couriers. They were good at carrying correspondence between Venice and the Italian cities, especially Milan and Rome, and they ended up being made official couriers of the Pope's correspondence. Then the emperor Maximilian the first gave them the chance to work inside the Holy Roman Empire, and one of them, Jannetto, living at court, was given charge of the postal service of Spain and the Netherlands: from him descends the house of Thurn und Taxis, which became one of the richest families in Europe. The comune's coat of arms carries a black post horn, and one of its hamlets is called Cornello dei Tasso.

The market of Camerata had been one of the most important in the area — enough to cause quarrels with Zogno and San Giovanni Bianco — because the via Mercatorum passed through here on its way up to the Valtellina. Then Venice, which had taken the valley in 1428 and granted it tax relief and privileges, had a new road built, the via Priula, easier for carts and travellers; and it built it on the valley floor, leaving the village out. Camerata lost its trade. That is why Cornello dei Tasso, isolated in the centuries that followed, is today one of the best preserved villages in Lombardy: the road that ruined it is the reason it was never rebuilt. The comune has a dark date too: in July 1914 Simone Pianetti killed seven people here in the space of a few hours, and was never caught — he went up into the mountains and vanished.