Culture in the Zoldo valley

Culture in Zoldo is close to nature, rooted in craft and closely tied to wood. You see it in the houses, hear it in the dialect and experience it at its loudest during carnival, when the Gnaga parades through Fornesighe.

Events calendar

What’s coming up in the valley. Past events disappear automatically.

Tabià: the hay barns of the valley

The typical building of the valley is the tabià. The ground floor is built of stone and often used as a stable; above it sits a timber structure where hay was dried and stored. The slatted walls let the air through, and the wide roofs protect against snow.

Many tabià stand in Fornesighe, one of the most beautiful villages in the valley, but also in Coi, Mareson and Pecol. Some are still used as hay barns, many have been carefully converted into holiday homes. As you walk through the villages, look at the details: larch shingles, old initials and dates carved into the beams.

Carnival in Fornesighe and the Gnaga

The best-known custom of the valley is the carnival of Fornesighe, usually held on the first weekend in February, with the big parade on Sunday. Figures wearing carved wooden masks parade through the village. The most important is the Gnaga (pronounced roughly “nyah-gah”): a bent old woman in big wooden clogs who carries a cheerful young man in the basket on her back. Her face is a carved wooden mask; according to tradition the figure dates back to 1897.

Ahead of the procession the Matazin leaps about in a brightly coloured costume with noisy bells, announcing the parade. The most feared figure is the Om Salvarech, the hairy “wild man of the woods” with sharp fangs. The carnival also includes a competition of carved wooden masks from the mountain carnivals.

Zoldo masks are so distinctive that they are shown in museums, for example in the Museo Maschere Dolomitiche in Sacile. In the valley itself, Forno di Zoldo has a small museum of masks and wood inlay in the former village dairy.

The next Gnaga carnival is listed in the events calendar above.

Churches and the “Michelangelo of wood”

The oldest church in the valley is San Floriano in Pieve di Zoldo. It is first documented in the 12th century and was given its Gothic form at the end of the 15th century. Its bell tower, about 47 metres high with a spire covered in larch shingles, can be seen from afar.

Inside stands the Altar of Souls (Altare delle Anime) from 1687, an early work by Andrea Brustolon. The sculptor was born in Belluno in 1662 to parents from Zoldo. He trained in Venice and Rome, carved luxurious furniture for Venetian noble families and later mainly altars and figures for churches in the province of Belluno. In the 19th century critics called him the “Michelangelo of wood”.

Also typical of the valley are the many small wayside shrines, the capitelli, at crossroads and village entrances.

The nature exhibition in Pieve

In the former primary school of Pieve di Zoldo, the Mostra naturalistica shows the animals that live in the forests and mountains around the valley. There are mounted birds such as tawny owl, goshawk, jay and capercaillie, plus marmots, martens, roe deer, chamois and red deer. Next to them lie traces from the forest: nests, feathers, skulls, footprints and a log showing the work of a woodpecker. It is a lovely place for children to learn who lives in the forest, and a good outing on a rainy day.

Opening hours and current information are on the official page: museums and exhibitions in Val di Zoldo.

Language: Zoldano

Among themselves many locals speak Zoldano, a dialect that linguists classify as Ladin–Venetian. It is related to the Ladin of South Tyrol but never had direct contact with Tyrol and is more strongly shaped by Venetian. The area is recognised as Ladin under Italy’s minority language law 482/1999. The oldest known text in Zoldano is a translation of the parable of the prodigal son from 1835.

A word you quickly learn in the valley: tabià. And thanks to the ice-cream tradition, many people from Zoldo speak excellent German.

KiKeSona: music in Zoldano

The band KiKeSona from Forno di Zoldo shows that Zoldano is alive. They sing in the Zoldo dialect. Lyricist and singer is Augusto “Charly” Gamba. Best known are the album Masa bèl, with songs such as “Le Bocole” and “Isolai”, and the EP Ora de torná, “time to go home”, a theme every ice-cream family knows well.

Sundials on the houses

Walking through the villages you will see old sundials, the meridiane, on many house walls, often with a motto in Italian or Latin.

Fountains, farmyards and everyday life