Nomaglio

Nomaglio lies on the slopes of the Serra moraine ridge of Ivrea, below the Mombarone, looking down on the Dora Baltea valley. The old lords of Settimo Vittone, the Enrico or Henrico, had their seat here; one branch, the Giampietro, counts of Montestrutto, Quincinetto, Tavagnasco and Nomaglio, died out in the eighteenth century into the Mola of Beinasco, who from then on took the village's name and called themselves Mola di Nomaglio. The municipal arms carry a golden forge hammer on red.

What rules the land here, though, is the chestnut. The fruiting chestnut groves climb above the houses and still bring in a living: the chestnut ecomuseum rests on an old water mill that grinds the flour to this day, and a marked path leaves the village square and rises among hundred-year-old trees, past the benne where the leaves were piled, the ricciaie where empty husks were dumped, and the field driers that turned fresh chestnuts into dried ones. Lower down, on the valley-floor pastures, the cheeses of Nomaglio were once made in small amounts and with some renown.