Comano Terme

The baths that give this comune its name were found again by people who were not looking for them. The legend, which the poet Giovanni Prati gathered among others, tells of a sorceress sheltering in a gorge, of the count of Castel Spine who defended her from mockery and whom she rewarded by having him bathe in the spring of her cave, healing the red marks on his face; then a landslide, which really did happen around 1400, buried everything. The rediscovery, by contrast, is documented and far more prosaic: in the nineteenth century the thermal water reappeared in seepages of ground where the peasants left hemp to ret, and it was they who noticed that this water cured scabies, eczema and skin diseases. Digging began, and beneath came to light the remains of an ancient Roman bath and of the cave. The spa buildings, however, stand on the left bank of the Sarca, in the territory of the comune of Stenico: the comune bears the name of baths that are not inside its own boundaries.

The restored baths were bought by Gian Battista Mattei, who in 1825, four years later, left them in his will to the poor of the three pievi of Banale, Lomaso and Bleggio, with the administration entrusted to the parish priests. Before then this area was part of the Seven Pievi of the Giudicarie, which under the prince-bishop of Trento enjoyed a partial autonomy, with an episcopal captain lodged in the castle of Stenico: a medieval form of government that survived even the Habsburgs and ended only with the First World War. Between 1850 and 1950 many left these villages for northern Europe, Argentina and the United States, and in the nineteenth century several settlements burned: Vergonzo in 1859, Bono in 1860, Lundo in 1864. At Vigo Lomaso stands the only church in Trentino with a detached baptistery.