The porphyry: the red gold
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Currently the porphyry one is the most important industry in the Cembra Valley. It was because of its extraction and the induced activity that in the last century the valley reached an unprecedented development and wealth.
The need of carrying this mineral, crude or semiprocessed, gave also a stimulus for the building of new roads, contributing to interrupt the centuries old isolation of the valley.
The first prophyry quarries in Trentino-South Tyrol were opened in Ora (South Tyroler Auer) and Bronzolo (Branzoll) in 1880.
In the Cembra Valley the activity has started early in the 20th century, but the Cembran porphyry mining had its higher growth especially in the second postwar period: this reddish stone, used in the building industry, is extracted in the form of large slabs, particularly suitable to be converted into paving cubes or into big flat stones; a large part of the extracted stone is exported. In the little towns of the so-called porphyry district (Albiano, Fornace, Baselga and Lona-Lases, all on the left side of the valley), most of the non-agricultural workers are now involved in activities related to this industry. Other quarries are in the right side too, particularly in the Rio Scorzai brook zone, nearby Cembra.
In the past who found exploitable deposits in their land, had in his/her hands a pure fortune: usually these estates were converted into quarries, both if they were cultivated fields or woods; now, on the contrary, the local governments are much more reluctant to grant workings licences.
The porphyry mining
1
In the last eighties it was issued a book entirely related to the industry of the extraction and working of the porphyry in Trentino, often with highly critical tones, (L'oro rosso, i.e. the red gold, edited by Walter Ferrari e Carolina Andreatta), whose title I've borrowed to name this page 2. This work reminds us that, as it happens in any thing, also for the Cembran porphyry there's the reverse of the medal: in this case it deals with the environmental impact and the industrial diseases (especially the silicosis) that particularly in the past affected the workers of the quarries and of the manufacturing plants.
Only over the last years, indeed, there've been adopted devices that drastically lower the dusts: even if they don't get rid the illnesses completely, they highly reduced their incidence.
Moreover, just in this period (November/December 2004), meetings are in progress in order to provide the quarries with new extraction machineries that should diminish very much the load on the backbone of the quarrymen.
2 Note: besides the porphyry, the expression “red gold” in Italy is sometimes associated to other products: for instance in Tuscany there are people who call in this way the meat from the Chianina cow.
The laying of the porphyry
As the quarry work has always been a tough one, the immigrants have traditionally been the "mainstay" of the extraction operations: in the fifties of the 20th century above all the Calabrians (from Calabria, in the southern Italy) worked in the quarries. Often they integrated well in the Cembran fabric and later on in many cases they obtained concessions to exploit porphyry mines on their own. Nowadays the Chineses are the new quarrymen in the Cembra Valley and, maybe, the future owners of mines.
Link to the site of the Trentino Porphyry Development Board: www.porfido.it.
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© 2005, Fabio Vassallo