Around 1300 Walser settlers from the Simplon came onto the mountain, and by the end of the fourteenth century Ornavasso was already a German-speaking island. The settlers learned to quarry marble, which went down the Toce to Milan and ended up in the Duomo: it suited the Milanese because it cost less than Candoglia marble, being of poorer quality.
In 1890 Enrico Bianchetti found two Lepontic-Celtic burial grounds here; from those digs come the large brooches known as "of Ornavasso" and the Latumarus vase, with inscriptions in the Lepontic-Ligurian alphabet. Walser died out in the nineteenth century: the last written traces in public documents are from around 1863.
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📅 Every year, on 6 December; on 8 September the Madonna del Boden, or of Miracles, is celebrated
Ornavasso celebrates Saint Nicholas on 6 December, in the church dedicated to him; on 8 September, the feast of the Madonna del Boden, or of Miracles, is celebrated, whose sanctuary was expanded around the mid-17th century to welcome pilgrims.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
