Fiemme Valley
— — the valley that grew the wood for Stradivari.
Not only on a wall.
“A long valley running northeast through eastern Trentino under the Latemar and Lagorai ranges, threaded by the Avisio river. The Paneveggio forest above Predazzo grows the resonant red spruce that Antonio Stradivari chose for his violins three centuries ago. Cavalese, the old capital, still meets under the open-air court of the Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme, a self-governing community of villages whose charter is recorded in 1111. — from the studio
Fiemme Valley, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Val di Fiemme runs roughly fifty kilometres through eastern Trentino, between the Latemar massif to the north and the Lagorai ridge to the south, drained by the Avisio river. The valley floor sits around a thousand metres above sea level; Cavalese, the historic capital, stands at 1,000 metres almost exactly. Eleven communes share the valley under the Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme, an old self-governing community whose written charter is recorded in 1111. The valley belongs to Trentino, within the broader Italian Dolomites.
Above Predazzo the Paneveggio forest covers roughly twenty-seven square kilometres of red spruce, Picea abies, growing in the altitude band between 1,500 and 1,900 metres. The trees here lay down unusually even annual rings, narrow and slow, and the wood resonates with a clarity that drew Antonio Stradivari from Cremona in the late seventeenth century. Master luthiers still walk the stand in the cold months, choosing trunks felled in the descending moon. The forest carries the name Foresta dei Violini, the Forest of Violins.
The valley turns on a steady seasonal cycle. The Marcialonga, the seventy-kilometre cross-country ski race from Moena to Cavalese, fills the floor with several thousand skiers every January. Summer empties the towns upward to the high pastures, the malghe above Tesero and Castello, where dairying continues much as it has for centuries. The Lavazè and Pampeago lifts open through July and August for walking access onto the Latemar plateau. October brings the desmontegada, the seasonal cattle descent through the streets of Cavalese.