The name is recorded as Rasine between 1050 and 1070 and is thought to be pre-Roman, though some derive it from the Latin runcare, to clear the ground; in German it is Ratschings. Between the annexation of 1919 and 1923 the official Italian form was instead Racignes, which lasted four years. The comune as we know it is more recent still: it was born in 1929 from the merger of five comuni, Mareta, Racines, Ridanna, Telves and Val Giovo, and it remains scattered between the Racines valley and the Ridanna valley.
The coat of arms adopted in 1969 is the wolf of the Wolf von Mareit, the family of Castel Wolfsthurn at Mareta, but with the colours reversed: a borrowed emblem, declared as such by the inversion. The other history of these valleys is underground, and it is told by the provincial mining museum, spread between Ridanna, Masseria and Monteneve. Between the two valleys open the Stanghe falls, and almost everyone here speaks German: at the latest census, about ninety-seven per cent.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Racines
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
