Borno

The quarrel over Monte Negrino lasted more than a thousand years. It had begun in the seventh century between Borno and the Valle di Scalve, which disputed its pastures, and ended only in 1682. In between everything happened, including the fiercest episode: in 1394 a band that came down from the Valle di Scalve found the herdsmen of Borno on the mountain and slaughtered them. For the rest, Borno lived by obligations shared with the neighbouring villages: in 1234, for instance, it had to supply an architrave for the building of a bridge over the Oglio, the one the communities of the area maintained together.

On the mountains around there is a gentler story. The little church of San Fermo al Monte refers to the legend of the saints Fermo, Cristina and Glisente, who lived on three different mountains and, to let each other know they were still alive, lit bonfires. In 1688 a fire destroyed more than 150 houses in the village. Borno stands at nine hundred and twelve metres on the Plateau of the Sun, has a small ski station entirely inside a fir wood, and its people in the Camunian dialect are called burnàs. Two thousand six hundred and thirty inhabitants in the Val Camonica.