Museum Network: Associazione Musei d'Ossola
A strong house at high altitude to recount centuries of links with Walser culture
To the north of the village of Ponte, stands an imposing building that deviates from the traditional Walser architectural style: the Casa Forte - or Schtei Hüs (stone house) - which, located at an altitude of 1274 metres, is the highest fortification in the Ossola Valley
The building, which rises three storeys plus an attic, on the main front still retains the iron rings to which the beasts of burden were tied.
The entrance was defended by a bertesca (a protruding structure from which materials could be thrown down). On the ground floor, one room was used as a warehouse, another as a prison. On the first floor, a heated room was the meeting place of the Ammano (head of the Walser community) and his councillors. There were also residential rooms, including a kitchen with a monumental fireplace.
The Casa Forte was built by the wealthy merchant and notary Antonio Zur Schmitten in 1569 as his own seat - as Ammano - and as a warehouse and commercial control point along the route to the Valais (Gries Pass) and Ticino (San Giacomo Pass or Valdolgia Mountain).
Today, it houses an ethnographic museum of Walser culture and a small but important collection of sacred wood carvings of the German school from the 15th-16th centuries.
The Casa Forte is a museum that can be visited from June to September (entrance by donation)
OLD BUILDING WITHOUT A LIFT.
SCHOOL: BY PRIOR ARRANGEMENT WITH THE ORGANISATION, BY RESERVATION ONLY.
Credit: Archivio Fotografico Distretto Turistico dei Laghi - Marco Benedetto Cerini
