Carenno

Carenno is a village of bricklayers, and it says so openly. The Ca' Martì museum tells the history, the life and the work of the masons of Carenno and of the Val San Martino between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, and from there a route sets out to the places and the signs of that trade: buildings, hamlets, quarries. The clearest proof, though, is the new parish church, dedicated to the Immaculate and begun in 1911: it is imposing far beyond the measure of a village of this size, and the explanation is simple, because it was built by men whose trade was building.

The village, medieval in origin, is perched around the old parish church of Saints Peter and Blaise and the tower called of Tuzzano Rota, which stands in contrada Carale and was the dwelling of the Guelph leader of that name, described by Cesare Cantù; the tower is in the coat of arms, beneath the mountains of the plateau. Out of so small a place came the patriot Gabriele Rosa, the physician Lorenzo Rota — known for his botanical studies —, the priest and journalist Davide Albertario and the philosopher Gustavo Bontadini. In the oratory of San Domenico there are paintings close to the dance of death, and in the locality of Colle di Sogno a compact group of rustic buildings clings to the ridge at almost a thousand metres. Until 1992 Carenno belonged to the province of Bergamo.