Short history of Vinigo

If in Peaio you take the road that leads to Vinigo from the main road “Statale 51”, you’ll find a sign that remind us of the Vinigo’s descent from Ladino. The sign says: “Vinigo Paes Ladin” (“Vinigo Paese Ladino” in Italian). chiesa_pelmoThe name of our village seems to stem from latin “Vicus”, as said by Mario Feruccio Belli in his book “Borca e Vodo nel Cadore”. Instead, Maria Teresa Sivieri, in her book “Vinego Paes Ladin”, says that the name stems from “Avinius”, with the suffix “icu”. chiesa da ozesFrom the book “Vinigo nel 900”: : It seems that Vinigo is one of the olderst settlements in Cadore, but there aren’t documents that gives us a certain date about its origin. It is placed between two streams: at west Rudan that rises from Antelao through Peaio, and at east Ruinan that rises from the same mountain and flow into the Boite. Once Ruinan’s waters operated the millstones of three mills placed near the village. This position allows Vinigo to be out of danger of landslides. In the first half of the 900, the village was surrounded with fields. In these fields there were crops of cereals, ryes, corns, barleys, potatoes,cabbages…. Soon afterward they left their place to meadows. Their hay served to feed the stocks, that was raised here until the beginnig of the Seveties. Presently the woods are getting more and more near the village. For a long time people of the village found sustenance in the agriculture, in the breeding and in the timber. In addition to all these activities, in the first years of the twentieth century, men worked as coppersmiths and glaziers, expecially in the winter. In the second half of the twentieth century, the main source of work in the valley were the glass-factories, that became the most important resource of our economy. Young people left the fields to go working in the factories. Vinigo, like all other villages here in Cadore, is also a village with a lot of emigrants. There are two different kinds of emigration. The first one is seasonal and is towards European countries, like for example Germany and Holland. The second one is final and is towards American countries, like United States and Argentina. Therefore, it isn’t strange that Vinigo’s population decreased from 359 residents in the 1929 to about 130 now.