Villandro

Of the name of this village, attested in the eleventh century as Filandres, the meaning has never been understood. Some call it pre-Roman, like the neighbouring Verdings and Feldthurns; others have looked for Latin roots, villa antrorum or valles antri; and some have even imagined a link with Flanders. None of the explanations is really convincing. So the village made one up for itself, with a pun: in German Villanders sounds like viel anders, «a lot different», and the legend tells that it was once called Schönberg, beautiful mountain, until a landslide devastated it and left it, precisely, a lot different from before. It is a false etymology and everybody knows it, but it is the only one here that has ever told a story.

What is known for certain lies below and above the village. Below: at the archaeological site of Plunacker, Mesolithic flint tools have come to light, of the eighth and seventh millennia before Christ, Neolithic finds among the most important of the whole Alpine arc, and, above all this, the remains of a large Roman villa richly furnished. Above: the alpine meadow of Villandro, which is the second largest mountain pasture in Europe and reaches close to two thousand five hundred metres; it is ideal grazing for ibex, that is for the favourite prey of Mesolithic hunters, which suggests that even then the whole meadow served as a summer hunting ground. In between, in the Middle Ages, stand the Lords of Villandro, one of the most powerful families of Tyrol: they were big farmers who lived in farmsteads as large as residences and who bought political weight by taking part in the wars in Italy. The line begins with Ekkehard I and splits into twelve branches; from Randold, who held Pradell, descend the counts of Wolkenstein and hence the poet and singer Oswald von Wolkenstein. The communal arms, granted in 1966, carry that family's emblem.