Colorina

This comune went bankrupt because of its lawsuits. In 1488 Colorina and Fusine had joined together to emancipate themselves from Berbenno di Valtellina, and on 8 April 1513 the comune of Colorina was born; from then on it is a story of quarrels. In 1524 came an excommunication from pope Clement VII over the suits on the usucaption of the Bergamask natives of Valmadre; in 1533 the comune obtained the alpine pastures of Cogola and Bernasca; in 1583 the archpriest of Berbenno guaranteed it a chaplain, but only on paper; in 1634 a boundary dispute with Forcola began over the Vendullo delle Ortiche. The contest with Buglio in Monte over the Busca Spessa had started in 1532 and closed only in 1831: three centuries. In 1781, meanwhile, the comune had gone bankrupt precisely from the cost of its territorial lawsuits.

The name is probably a diminutive of the dialect còler, that is hazel, from the Latin corylus. Colorina was among the first comuni of the province of Sondrio to have a coat of arms, granted in 1973: in the free quarter, where by convention one puts the authority the comune was subject to, there is a crown standing for Charlemagne, who in 775 had given this territory to the abbey of Saint-Denis; and in the shield there are a fir tree, a meadow and a grazing cow, which are the work of the place. The village stands on the alluvial fan of the Presio torrent, that spread of material the stream carried down and which turned out to be good for farming, and it climbs from the valley floor to about eighteen hundred metres. The Zamboni mill, water-driven and with its nineteenth-century stone grinder, is still working.