Introduction
Cibiana di Cadore is a town in the Dolomites, famous for the murals painted on the facades of its houses and for the Museum in the Clouds. Cibiana is a very characteristic historic village, which maintains the charm of the past. If you want to discover its history, its culture and its beauty, continue reading.
Both local and international artists have contributed to make Cibiana di Cadore a true open-air museum. In every glimpse of the village you can breathe history and tradition, so it's a perfect place for a day immersed in culture and art.
Cibiana is considered one of the most beautiful and suggestive villages in the province of Belluno, we strongly recommend you to visit it, if you have the opportunity to move in the surroundings of Cortina d'Ampezzo.
... Cibiana is one of the most beautiful villages in the province of Belluno...
If you are interested in the things to see around Cortina, you should also read our article below, where we recommend you some destinations:
How to reach Cibiana
Cibiana di Cadore can be easily reached from state road 51 of Alemagna. Just before Venas di Cadore you must turn right, in the direction of Zoldo Alto and Passo Cibiana. The intersection is well signposted.
... it takes about 40 minutes...
Starting from Cortina d'Ampezzo it takes about fourty minutes, for a distance of thirty three kilometers, twenty miles and a half. Unfortunately, this is not a particularly scenic or interesting route. Since it's a narrow mountain road with sharp turns, you should drive slowly, we also recommend using the navigator. If you don't have a car, it's possible to reach Cibiana also by bus, but the very few runs that go there could make the organization a bit complicated.
Once you reach your destination, you'll find a large parking lot on the left, just before reaching the town. In peak season you may find some traffic, so we recommend leaving early in the morning, especially in case of uncertain weather, to increase the chances of finding a car parking.
The Murals
The idea of the murals was born in 1980 thanks to the intuition of Osvaldo Da Col and Ludovico Calabrò, who were looking for a way to promote the village and attract some tourists, to try to stop the loss of residents. Cibiana has gone from 2000 inhabitants at the beginning of the century to less than 400 in present time.
Osvaldo worked as an ice cream maker in Germany. Returning home he was fascinated by the religious themed frescoes that decorated the houses along the road between Austria and Bavaria. After discussing this topic with his close friend "Vico", an internationally known artist, they had the idea of painting similar works in Cibiana as well.
They had a genius idea: instead of making a few murals and then stopping, they decided to make two or three murals each year, to keep attention on the project with the passing of time.
Another great intuition was to paint the murals only of the oldest houses of Cibiana, representing a subject related to the history of the building. In this way were born frescos such as "la Botega", that means the store "i Faure", that means the blacksmiths and "al Stagnin" that is the one who dealt with small repairs of the tools. All the paintings are inspired by the village life of the past.
... murals are linked to the history and the traditions of Cibiana...
Other murals portray stories, legends or characters linked to tradition of Cibiana, such as the fresco of the fire in "Pianezze" that deicts a fire that enveloped the homonymous district on 3 August 1852, and it stopped "by divine providence". Another example is "La Visciades" by Paolo Meneghesso, which describes the activity of bird hunters with mistletoe.
As mentioned above, murals are constantly evolving, with two or three made every year. The painters who come here to paint follow a motto that is really touching: you come to Cibiana not to take glory, but to bring it.
One of the latest murals created comes from Roberto Bianchi, a very talented naturalist painter of Cibiana di Cadore. His mural is inspired by his paintings. Roberto is specialized in oil representations of the dolomite fauna.
The murals are more than 50 and are scattered along the three districts in which the town is divided: Masariè, Pianezze and Cibiana di Sotto. To see all the murals you need at least half a day, in which you'll have to walk for a few kilometers along the small streets that cross the town. Fortunately there are many fountains for a refreshing stop, which allow you to drink some water between one mural and another. Water here in the mountains is clean and healthy, almost anyone drinks tap water in our own homes.
The inhabitants of the village are all very courteous and used to tourists, but remember that these are people who live in Cibiana, they are not there to entertain guests. You should always be polite, respectful and do not enter private property. Here you can download a map of all the murals from the official website of Cibiana.
If you are hungry, you can stop to eat or drink a beer at Bikers' Bos bar, a place where you'll relive the emotions of a traditional village bar. Alternatively, you can look to the Taulà dei bos, a restaurant with a conference hall annex that has recently changed management.
Mural painting
So, what is the mural painting technique that has been used to paint all the murals of Cibiana? It is a painting technique very similar to that of the fresco: the colored pigment is applied directly on the fresh plaster. This allows the mural to become one with the wall where it is drawn. First of all the outline of the subject is traced, then the painter moves to the large backgrounds and, only at the end, the attention goes to the details.
Initially this painting technique was used for political propaganda images, but in 1900 it was rediscovered as a purely decorative technique. In Italy, in addition to Cibiana, there are other examples of murals, such as those of Dozza, a medieval village located in Emilia Romagna or Satriano di Lucania, a town in Basilicata, considered one of the most influential villages in this sector.
Short story of Cibiana
The foundation of Cibiana di Cadore took place over a thousand years ago, when the barbarian invasions pushed the populations that lived along the Cadore valley to move, in order not to fall victim to pillage. However, the town reached the peak of its expansion during the Venetian domination, when the iron mines of "Ciarsiè" and "Ronzei", on the right side of Mount Rite, has made Cibiana one of the largest suppliers of keys and artillery bullets of the "Serenissima", as Venice sometimes is called. Iron extraction continued for more than three centuries and closed definitively around 1770. You can find many testimonies of this period in the Museum of the iron and the key, in Cibiana di Sotto.
In the following centuries the village maintained itself with the trade of keys and the pastoral activities, but due to the crisis following the first world war many residents emigrated, mostly to work in the ice cream parlors in Germany. During his travels to return home, as already mentioned above, the current president of the Pro Loco Osvaldo Da Col had the inspiration for the creation of the murals. Nowadays the village survives thanks to tourism and to the trade of keys, an activity still central to the local economy, thanks to the company Errebi that offers work to over 60 people.
The village has gained more tourist visibility thanks to the filming of a famous Italian television series, called "Un passo dal cielo". The major part of the eleventh episode of the sixth season has been filmed in the district of "Masariè". The series is really followed and the sixth season has been viewed, in Italy, by approximately 5 million people, which is almost a record for an italian product.
The museum in the clouds
In 2002, on the summit of Mount Rite, was inaugurated the MMM Dolomites, also known as The Museum in the Clouds.
This museum is a part of the famous Messner Mountain Museum, that is the reason for the acronym MMM. It is a museum project composed of six structures located in as many
locations in South Tyrol and Belluno. The work has been realized thanks to the commitment of the well-known mountaineer Reinhold Messner to raise the awareness of mountain life
and connect people with nature.
The heart of the museum circuit is located in "Firmian", inside the ancient walls of "Castel Firmiano", while the other structures have been
erected in "Corones", "Juval", "Ripa" and "Ortles" and, obviously, in "Cibiana".
Each museum has in common the theme of life and exploration of the mountains. For more information we invite you to
visit the official website of the MMM
project.
The museum in the clouds of Cibiana rises on the ruins of an old fort of World War I, built to stop the advance of the Austrian empire and later used by the partisans as a refuge. The restoration of the building has tried to preserve the original spirit of the fort, maintaining a part of the original structures and creating three glass observation points where in the past the cannons were placed.
After the realization of the Dolomites Museum, Reinhold Messner inaugurated a small museum called Campo Base, an exhibition dedicated to the history of mountaineering, where it's also possible to see the original tent that Messner used in the climb of Mount Nanga Parbat in 1978. It is located in the Cultural Pole of the Dolomites, at the "Taulà dei Bos", in the district of "Masariè".
YouTube video
If you want to deepen your understanding of the subject I would suggest you watch this fascinating video on YouTube, where you can hear the story of Cibiana directly from the voice of Osvaldo Da Col. The only problem is that it's in italian. Maybe you could try to use the automatic subtitles and translation feature of Youtube, but the accent may create some problems to the algorithm.
Conclusion
We hope you liked this page on Cibiana di Cadore and its murals. Before saying goodbye, we would suggest you read our home page, with all the articles we wrote about Cortina d'Ampezzo.
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