TABLE 2

THIRD HAIRPIN

The rediscovery
Montagne e Solidarietà APS has returned the Antica Strada del Costo to local memory and to posterity. The intervention was born in the Escursioni Storico Umanitarie group, from the intuition of the mountaineer Tarcisio Bellò, from research on site and in the archives with Giorgio Spiller, Omero Capraro and Valter Fabris. The volunteers identified and brought the ancient road back to light also with the help of African refugees. An artifact with an ancient flavor and knowledge of 16 kilometers re-emerged from long oblivion, telling the story of an entire territory.
The association, ensuring its maintenance, promoted the regional registration as Sentiero CAI 666, together with CAI Vicenza. The recovery took six years (5240 hours of work between 2018 and 2024) and 13,540 euros from various sponsors.
The Antica Strada del Costo received the 2020 GoSlow National Award and the mention “Model of recovery of an ancient road” at the 2024 Outdoor Tourism States General. A grandiose human work that in terms of the volume of stones moved is comparable to the Verona Arena. We should all enhance it and maintain it over time.

From the third hairpin bend to Val Canaglia
The Antica Strada del Costo was cut in the mid-19th century by the third hairpin bend of the “new Strada del Costo” and in 1960 by the current provincial road SP 349. Volunteers built steps to connect the ancient itinerary above. Diagonally you reach the Military Road called “Costo della Pendola”, while below “Costo Vecio”; in 1918 the drains buried the paved road. Diagonally you go to the 19th hairpin bend overlooked by the Capitello del Costo with a 19th-century shrine and an ancient shepherds’ shelter.
The path forks: on the left it drops down to the Costo, on the right it follows the track found by the volunteers.
The “COSTO” (name used on a 17th century map) is the rocky knot looming over Cogollo referring to the “Strada del Costo”, ancient and new.
At the 21st bend you go right, with safety cables, to the splendid paved stretch with a box and a book of the route for the signatures of wayfarers.

Historical attestations
1832 in the Austrian land registry, above Campiello, there is the wording “Strada detta del Costo che va ad Asiago”; then of municipal road “detta del Zovo” or “da Roncalto a Cesuna”.
1798-1805 Anton von Zach in the Kriegskarte defined it: <<A pedestrian road 5 steps wide… from Asiago crosses Cesuna, turns into an equestrian road, goes to Campiello… Cogollo and Valle dell’Astico. Almost unusable if it rains continuously… because near the Contrada della Coda it is very soft… due to the water that comes down from the mountains.>>
1809-1816 the Napoleonic maps of Avviso indicate “Strada del Costo” and “Capitello del Costo”.
1608-1620 the maps Giandomenico dell’Acqua, Filippo Pigafetta, Giovanni and Domenico Molino show the ancient road which, on the G. Molino map and another contemporary one, has a complete development.
1598 in the “Relazione dell’Alpi Vicentine” Count Francesco Caldogno, border inspector for the Serenissima, said that <<…he received a letter from the Rectors of Vicenza… while I was descending into the Canaglia valley.>> (Biblioteca Bertoliana, ms 595 pp 203-205).
1524 Contarina ruling <<…the road of Canaglia, locally called Campielo…>>
1204 Rotzo boundary act, a sixteenth-century forgery that is nevertheless important, in which the ancient road of Val di Maso would act as the border between Cogollo and Rotzo, now Roana.