An Italian Regional knife: the Bergamasco - a little cabinet of curiosities

[Herlock]

Hello Traditionals’ Crew! I generally don’t post here , being my interest more on the modern folders side. Anyway, as an amateur hiker interested in ethnography and knives hobbyist, having roamed since my childhood in these valleys and mountains around Bergamo (Italy), I came to know some things about the traditional regional knives of this area. Along the years, I have visited the several museums opened in this area, the remains of old buildings, mines and explored a few of the sites cited in the documents and local history books. During our hikes, I always try to talk with old villagers, shepherds, woodsmen, etc. collecting and verifying information about historical facts and legends. I thought it could have been interesting to share something about the knives here. Here you have it!

In the Bergamo valleys, an economy based on a “poor” mountain agriculture has always been sided by the crafting of wooden and metal (mainly iron) tools and items, to supplement income and to profitably spend the idle time given by the changing of the seasons. This also taking advantage from the availability of raw materials such as timber, iron and abundance of water to be exploited as a main source of energy. Especially during the long winters, these mountain people dedicated themselves to the construction of tools supporting their agricultural activities, household items and even furniture. Among the tools in use daily, indispensable for those working in mountain pastures, in the woods, or for those who were dedicated to the hunting and gathering, it was the pocket knife. The pocket knife was such a precious and beloved tool as to be regarded almost as an object of worship by some, who customized it with carvings, in traditional motifs and the name of the owner.

In these valleys, already since the time of the Romans, and possibly earlier, iron was mined and processed on spot. This area was already famous for the rich production of weapons during the Middle Ages and until the seventeenth century; from pole arms like halberds, falchions, fauchards, glaives, produced in the villages of Zorzone and Oltre il Colle, to the blades and swords produced in Gromo (which also produced fine swords and raw blades for export), up to the renowned butcher knives produced in Clusone, exported and much appreciated even in England. Thanks to the presence of rich iron ores, the production of weapons developed and flourished. Its decline began with the advent of firearms. By the early twentieth century, only a marginal, small to medium sized, family run business production of agricultural tools (workshops were mainly using water-powered mallets from watermills) remained, together with a small handicraft local production of pocket knives.

Bergamasco knife is a typical tool, thought and made exclusively with the everyday work in mind, well distancing itself away from the shapes and sizes of other Italian knives, which, already at first glance, suggest that were not being made to cut a piece of dried meat or cheese. However, precisely because being of daily use and a personal item it reached - thanks to the skill, inspiration and, in some cases, to the artistic taste of the makers - a distinctive shape and identity which earned, on the book "Knives of Italy" by Giancarlo Baronti this wonderful recognition "... one of the most beautiful among Italian knives, the Bergamasco knife, with the harmony of its simple lines, its proportionate nimbleness blended in the might of its shape, is immediately able to give a sense of aesthetic perfection and functional minimalism ".


The basic types

Bergamasco knife needs anyway to be better defined, as there are (slightly) different models connected to specific different production areas, models also influenced by the different intended use. There are two main models: the Val Brembana model and the Val Seriana one. The first can be considered the classic Bergamasco, with a mild recurved blade, suitable for carving a piece of wood, slicing cheese, bread loaf and dried meat, skinning, making bows and traps. It sports a recurved edge, a hump on the opposite side, close to the ring nut, which can accommodate the thumb for a comfortable the grip. Downwards from the hump, it outlines basically a clip point blade design, more or less marked, depending on the taste of the maker. The second, the Val Seriana model, it’s a sort of utility knife, sporting two blades, specific for the shepherds who had often, in the past, the need to practice bloodletting to animals with the smallest blade.

A Val Brembana classic type

A Val Brembana (upper) and Val Seriana (lower) types

The handle is usually made of boxwood, sometimes dogwood. The 60ies and 70ies production has seen the use of beech, cherry and walnut, still native tree species but not “traditional” for Bergamasco knife handles. There are, however, rare exceptions, where handles are made out of bovine horn (examples can be found in some knives from the villages of Foppolo and Pizzino). Handle also has a very particular form: it is slightly recurved to comfortably hold the blade and it ends, at the heel, with an elegant prominence thought to improve the grip, today we'd call it an “anatomically shaped contour”. The ring nut, as well as aesthetic value, it serves to better fix the blade, being the Bergamasco a truly slipjoint. In the oldest models the ring nut was made in iron, in the more recent ones, is brass. There is no lock for the blade and this was due to the fact that, with the lock, the knife would have fallen within the prohibited carry types.

Shapes and dimensions appear to be well defined already in some local frescoes dating back 1400 A.D. and the Bergamasco knife even appears in some paintings of 1500 A.D.. The first knives were however fixed blades. The folding knife, even if known, it was rarer and only later on, due to the imposed restrictions for public security reasons, it was fully established as characteristic type. In this regard is possible to see in the Valley Museum in Zogno, an Austrian Government ordinance, dating back 1830, which was determining the allowed shapes and sizes for the pocket knives and the penalties and fines for those found carrying prohibited models.

Some very old ones

Pictured here is one of the oldest fixed models. The largest blade is probably the oldest found to date. The second has never been mounted on one handle, it has remained unfinished. The blade of the finished knife can be traced back in the years around the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is mounted on a chamois horn, likely more recent than the blade and not really typical.

Carona knives, fixed blades. Old but not ancient (precise age unknown), were probably intended for use in the kitchen.

This knife was originally a fixed blade which has re-assembled later in a folder.

Fixed blade, very old (precise age unknown). The blade already recalls the classic Val Brembana model.


They used it to light the fire

Pictured up here it’s a very old folder, no identification punches on the blade. It’s difficult to determine the age of this knife, but one thing is certain: on the back of the blade it sports a checkering, apparently there for ornamental reasons. Studies confirmed it is instead a striker! Rubbing the flint on the back of the blade (the wear on the spine is visible), sparks were produced to start a fire. This was the common way to light up fires there, at least until the mid-nineteenth century. A old way which is having a full revival nowadays!

 

[Herlock]

Part 2

A maker: Carlo Molinari - two-handed folding knives

The blades were generally made out from old files and from leaf springs. However, even in more recent times, there had been makers who still mined the iron by themselves and worked the steel on spot. In the village of Mezzoldo, for example, Carlo Molinari (1880 – 1944) mined from a small ore (near the actual Bar Baita) the iron he used for its knives. He melted the metal in a woodpile furnace and he carried the metal blocks that were formed down to the valley, then purifying them by hammering. This was probably also the way used in other areas in the valleys, in times of material shortage and can be seen as the last remains of an ancient knowledge.

Molinari was a woodsman and, during the winter, he was building custom knives. He owned a small forge and he preferred to use steel from files; failing that, he extracted the iron on his own. He has been known as maker for very large knives, intended for woodworking (those are, in fact, by all means, considered two-handed operated knives). His oldest knives are the largest Bergamasco models known: overall length up to 36 cm. In the village of Mezzoldo it is known they were active, until 1925, in the Scaluggio hamlet, a mallet, a saw mill and a mill, occupying different floors in the same house, to take better advantage of the power of falling water. Unfortunately a big, rather recent flood has destroyed the last remains. Further up, towards the San Marco pass, more or less in the same area, there was a rather famous foundry. So a lot was worked on site!

The huge two-handed operated knife from Mezzoldo


A maker: Paolo Annovazzi

A famous maker in the Brembana valley was Paolo Anovazzi (1908-1984), from the village of Valtorta. He is also considered the last one of the “old generation” of makers. He used to punch his knives with the APV (Anovazzi Paolo Valtorta) logo. Having spent so many summer holidays in Valtorta when I was a kid (my parents owned a small summer house there at that time), I have some memories of this old man in the village.

Valtorta boasts ancient traditions for extraction and processing of iron, both for the presence and exploitation of mines, and for the numerous shops in which iron was turned into manufactured goods to be traded, especially nails. Paolo was the village blacksmith, and had a shop in Forno Nuovo hamlet, on the left bank of the river Stabina. It was nicknamed “the Beard” by fellow villagers.

He was an independent spirit, a free man, who loved his job but was also able to take a few days of “freedom”, roaming his mountains. When the weather was "right", according to his judgment, no commitment could hold him back. He woke up before dawn to roam the valleys up to the peaks and following the flowing crystal clear waters. He took full days to soak in Nature, from dawn until sunset. He went fishing or hunting or simply hiking. This simplicity in life-style and spirit is a common character trait that, better than others, embodies the mountain man, tied to the rhythms of the seasons, strong willed, capable and resourceful.

For his blades he used quality steel which he was sourcing from Bergamo and sometimes even from Milan. He was busy all day around, when not in the work-shop, he was out, with his bag of knives to sell, knives he delivered to various retailers in Bergamo Province and other villagers, who went into the city to make their fortune or just make ends meet. He also started an ante-litteram mail-order business in small scale, by shipping his knives also in some areas of Piedmont, where they were required by the emigrants from the village. Those were times, when the links with family, friends and the community had an absolute value.

In those times, the ties with own culture could have been strengthened by simply owning something that reminded their land, their past, their own people. Even a simple peasants’ knife, forged from "the Beard”. This testifies such a strong attachment to the historical/cultural heritage, that a simple crafted item was seen as able to lighten up the detachment from their districts for the generations who had been forced to "pack their bags".

His workshop had outside a large wheel powered by the derived and channelled water from the Stabina torrent to spin the grindstone and to blow the air required for keeping alive the fire in the forge. On those "calm and no wind" days, he dedicated himself to the quenching, done by empirical experience in the water, as was custom in those days. Of his laboratory-workshop today only the ruins have left and a few carved stone with the signs of the bolts, anchoring his machinery to the ground.

APV production - Annovazzi Paolo Valtorta


Other makers: Blades from the sickles

Another famous family in the valley was the Belotti, from Camerata Cornello, that produced not only pocket knives, but also kitchen, butcher and agricultural tools. The last production of knives was not punched or marked (very old models with the punch “B” exist, but it is not surely established they were from their production). However, their models are recognizable because the Belotti used to work the handle, always in boxwood, with a “gun grip” style checkering and, even if other makers occasionally used it, this has remained their signature. Their blades originated from old files, leaf springs and they were the few ones to recycle the tang of the scythe, which, in many cases, was provided by the customer himself.

The Belotti were also skilled in forging the iron mining tools with a very thorough understanding even on the mineral to be extracted.
The went as far as adjusting the forge and the quenching based on the analysis the iron rock itself, using the technique called here “fer assalat ”: on a soft blade it was applied a thin sheet of hard steel, this technique also was known and applied by the Celts and pre-dates the laminated steel technique and the damask steel technology.

Sample of Belotti production from Camerata Cornello

In the village of Zorzone, rather natuaral given the centuries-old tradition of blades production and mine work, was active, until 1880 ca., the maker Angelo Palazzi nick-named “the postman”. He used to build the classic Val Brembana model on order and he sometimes used the checkering on the handle, as Belotti, probably on explicit request from the customer only.

In the village of Carona there were mallets, forges, sawmills and a big mill (now resting at the bottom of the artificial lake) where the iron coming from Armentarga valley was processed. Until the beginning of the 70ies, Giuseppe Riceputi (1888- 1972) has been active as a maker, being primarily a miller and a blacksmith. He built knives especially for shepherds and cheesemakers, always on a customer’s order basis. GR was his punch, and a very elegant nick-nail vaguely recalling a crocodile shape, was his signature. His son, Fiorino Riceputi (1913-1973) also has been a maker, nicknamed Ferdinancc. There were other knife makers in Carona. Some knives with the punch BC CARONA have been recovered, which suggests that a number of knives were produced in the forges to be sent to the markets or fairs. Carona knives also had boxwood handles and a good steel quality.

A BC Carona punched blade

Interesting model from the maker Riceputi


Foppolo knives, not very famous but beautiful

Among the least known knives, but without a doubt among the best ones for steel quality (probably the blades were forged in Carona), construction skills and artistic taste is the Foppolo model. In the village of Foppolo have been active, until about seventy years ago, the Papetti brothers: Antonio, Luigi and Sandro. Shepherds as primary job, they owned a small forge where, in winter, they made knives and small agricultural tools on an order basis. They were also very good at sculpting the boxwood handles with mythical beasts, as we can see:

Foppolo knife from Papetti brothers

Some rare examples of horn handles on Bergamasco knives comes from this family, others from a certain Vitali, who lived at the beginning of the last century in the village of Pizzino (Val Taleggio), where he also worked as shepherd. His signature horn handles, with brass inlays, were produced using a “nail technique”. The ornamental motives were created with a kind of punctuation, made with brass tacks. He was probably buying the blades.

Other knives were produced in Acquada area (town of Zogno), but little is known, as it is for the Cassiglio production. Also in the village of Lenna, near the Madonna della Coltura shrine, Rinaldo Paganoni and Vittore Calvi were probably producing knives. The two families owned the mill, the mallet and the forge. Not far away, in the Miniera hamlet, there was actually a mine, owned by the Calvi family. The fact they built knives here is something more than a guess, because some shepherds (from the Cler hamlet) reminded the knives coming precisely from that area.

Even in Val Imagna, in the village of Rota Dentro, until the 50ies, kitchen knives were produced in pretty large numbers, and pocket knives on an order basis (especially pruning hooks knives) by the Moscheni family, who owned a mallet on the Imagna creek.
In Clanezzo mallet, where Personeni family worked from the beginning of the last century they did not produce pocket knives, but kitchen knives were produced in rather large numbers until the 60ies.


Today production in Premana (Lecco)

If we dig into history, we can find Bergamasco knives production basically in every village of the upper valleys. These knives were also exported to France by emigrants, mainly loggers and coalmen since from 1800, in rather big quantities. With the disappearance of the last knife makers, the risk of losing the tradition of this unique knife has been high. Fortunately, the affection and the habit to those shapes and lines of local people and the new wave of interest in regional, traditional knives, ensured that the production was carried out by today knife makers in Premana. Bergamasco knife was not born in Premana, however, given the market and retailers demand, production continues there today. Both the Val Brembana and Val Seriana models are still produced and, although the quality of some production blades leaves something to be desired - when in comparison to the old “manual” production - it should however be credited to Premana manufacturers they have kept the tradition alive.

Modern production Bergamasco knives


Sources: Caccia in Val Brembana - Agosto 2005 - Anno IX - n° 25 (Piergiorgio Mazzocchi); Quaderni Brembani # 10 (Centro Storico Culturale Val Brembana)

 

[stezann]

Beautiful article, well written and interesting! Thank you very much!

 

[Pomsbz]

Fascinating!

 

[Railsplitter]

Very interesting article. I own one of the modern day versions of the Bergamasco made by Viper of Italy. I had no idea of the rich history behind these. Thank you so much for sharing this.

I'll try to remember to post a pic of my Viper Bergamasco later today when I have access to my photos.

 

[screened porch]

How thick are the blades on those?
Thanks for sharing.

 

[Peregrin]

Excellent write up. Thanks so much for posting it.

 

[afishhunter]

Very interesting. Thank you.

 

[kvaughn]

Great, well written, informative read!--KV

 

[Nixelplix]

Very neat- thank you!

 

[Railsplitter]

Here are a couple of quick pics of my modern day Bergamasco.

Again, thank you for the article, Herlock.

 

[popedandy]

Great writeup and very informative. Thanks!

 

[Jack Black]

A fascinating article, many thanks for posting it here :thumbup:

 

[Herlock]

Hi! Thank-you all for your kind comments. I am happy you liked the post.

@ Railsplitter: Thanks! You have a very nice Bergamasco from Viper! I’d say, based on my little historical knowledge, the bovine handle is rare but still “traditional”, the missing ring nut it’s instead very unusual. I think it’s a maker’s stylistic choice, Fabrizio Silvestrelli does great designs!

@ Scrteened porch: The blades on the modern production knives - the ones I saw at least - are mostly around 3 mm thickness (some small blades can have 2.5 mm). it’s very comparable to an Opinel, in this respect.

Ciao!

 

[screened porch]

Thank you, Herlock.

 

[mete]

Many thanks Herlock. I'd like to add here that Milan is not far from Bergamo and was a center of arms and armor making ! Quality there was some of the best in Europe .There are some still operating ironworks in northern Italy ,hundreds of years old . If I had known all this when I had visited Italy perhaps I would have never left !
Herlock,is the a publication that would list old iron works and their locations - for those visiters who would like to see how it was"in the old days " ?

 

[ConBon]

This is a wonderful thread, very nice morning reading! I'm now interested in buying a Bergamasco for a friend

Connor

 

[traumkommode]

The historical background is appreciable! Some of these remind me of Opinels - they don't come from Italy, but it's cool to see similarities in close parts of the world.

 

[jackknife]

Nice knives!!!:thumbup::thumbup:

It seems a common theme running through the Italian knives that has the distinctive downturn on the end of the handle, and to a lesser degree the Sardinain knives as well. My Italian Zuava has that look.

[/url]Untitled by Carl Levitan, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[flatblackcapo]

Excellent post, Herlock! Thank you very much for taking the time to share your knowledge of of these knives and their makers.