Cilimo Quarry

In the area of Roccapietra and the Pascone Valley, there is evidence from the 17th and 18th centuries of the quarrying of the so-called ‘green marble’ of Cilimo, the quarrying area of which was described in 1773 as being situated in the stream bed, on Mount Colma and along the Colma road, both towards the Orta side and towards the Roccapietra area as far as the Sesia, ‘particularly in the district known as Cilimo’.

Plans aimed at the systematic exploitation of quarry faces appear to date from the early nineteenth century, alongside the usual search for erratic boulders (blocks of carbonate serpentine containing tremolite or ooficalce): indeed, records show that in 1824, surveys were carried out with the aim of ‘discovering deposits of green marble or other types, and even the quarries from which they are extracted’, conducted by the Marquises D’Adda to supply the ‘building sites’ of the palaces in Milan and Varallo.

During the early decades of the 20th century, quarrying of the ‘antique green marble of Varallo’ intensified, taking on an industrial character and extending to the highest slopes of the Pascone Valley, before rapidly declining and ceasing altogether after the Second World War.

Today, as you descend from Alpe Piaggia, you come across just a few fragments – all that remains of an erratic boulder that was once quarried.