Ronco Canavese

Ronco is the main village of the Val Soana, on the right bank of the stream of the same name and head of ten or so hamlets scattered over the slopes, as far up as the Servino stronghold called the Gran Betun, reached only on foot. Its land climbs into the Gran Paradiso National Park; at Castellaro the Soana has drilled giants' kettles into the rock. The parish church, split from that of Campiglia in 1280, is stone-built under a roof of slabs.

Castellaro also held the copper forge, driven by the stream and dated by an inscription to 1675: out of it came the pans and tools of the magnin, the travelling coppersmiths who went round the Alps mending and selling copper. Coppersmiths, glassmakers and chimney sweeps were the trades that emptied the valley, and the Madonna del Crest sanctuary is their memorial: outside, the Virgin watches over a carved glassmaker and coppersmith; inside, an altar carries sixty-eight flames, one for each Val Soana glassworker who died at work in France or Switzerland.