Well Halloween is not an Italian tradition. But till I was six I was a happy Canadian boy and still I have my skeleton suite. The celebration, however, is of celtic and pagan origins and Valtellina (SO) certainly has deep celtic roots.
The pictures I am publishing are from an obscure and misterious place in the Tovo S.Agata (Sondrio Valtellina Italy) mountain.
In the local oral tradition this was the place where witches and daemons had their sabbas . The paintings on the rocks are a trace of this ancient belief and maybe also a trace of the bloody hunt and destruction of the remaining local pagan culture operated by the Catholic church in the middle age.
For me it is one of the places where I took some of my first pictures when I was thirteen. Back in my youth I wanted to contribute to the preservation of this place so I invited here a couple of persons from the "belle arti" (an Italian institution for the preservation of Italian artistic resources). Those ones dated the paintings, which were in best conditions than today, to 1200/1300 A.D, and attributed them to the school of "Valorsa" and then, fortunately, forgot everything so they are still in place.
Those pictures are also part of a series I am preparing for a project called "Memory of the Mountain" that I hope will be in my ever near to be finished web site.
3 comments:
Really cool pictures.
The second one look like a picture I took in Croatia in the Plitvice National Park.
I hope to see soon the rest of the series.
I still remember the feeling of this place - in the mountains and yet separated from them. A place, perhaps, so hidden it had taken on a secret life of its own; protecting the memories of the persecuted. The photos flood me with memories of the discovery of that place of pagan worship -
Very nice shot, it shows how you see the mountain instead of how good is your photo taking technique...hope you've achieved what you planned in 2008...
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