Chiuro

In 1959 Maria Reggiani Rajna found two prehistoric stelae wedged into the low wall of a vineyard, in the Castionetto district: someone, at some point, had used as building stones two monuments four thousand years old. The first, a block carved on both faces, shows on one side three parallel lines — perhaps a necklace — from the Eneolithic, between 2200 and 1800 BC, and on the other a human figure gripping a long-handled axe; according to Priuli five phases of engraving are superimposed on it, the last one medieval. The second bears a wheel with a double circle and eight spokes: for Emmanuel Anati, who directs the Camunian centre of prehistoric studies at Capo di Ponte, it is a sign common in the rock art of the Valle Camonica but unknown elsewhere. The two stelae are now in the Valtellina Museum of History and Art in Sondrio.

The village lies on the right bank of the Adda, among the terraced vineyards of the middle Valtellina, and its parish church of Santi Giacomo e Andrea, consecrated on 24 June 1487 and rebuilt in baroque form in 1643, is a small anthology of painters: the portico of the Disciplini frescoed by Cipriano Valorsa of Grosio, the dark canvases of Giacomo Parravicini of Caspano, the stuccoes of Agostino Silva from Ticino, the gilded ciborium carved in 1692 by Michele Cogoli and the choir stalls made by Pietro Brasca of Como in 1527. Above the Castionetto district the tower of Roncisvalle still keeps watch, traditionally attributed to the fifteenth-century condottiero Stefano Quadrio. And in the houses people still weave the pezzotto, the Valtellina rug of bright colours and geometric designs.