TABLE 4

PONTE CAMPIELLO

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 GoSlow 2020 National Award and the mention “Recovery model 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.

Ponte Campiello
The Antica Strada del Costo, from the pavement with the box for the wayfarers' signature book, goes up the upper part of the Val Canaglia, under the Pendola hill, partly on pavement or on the bed next to the Cogollo - Asiago train.
The name Val Canaglia derives from the Latin canalis, feminine "canalea", leading the water downstream.
In Ponte Campiello, as the name suggests, there was a still visible bridge built in 1909, on which the old Regia road passed, allowing the train to go up on the right.
The ancient road therefore used the same bed of the Royal Postal Road up to three quarters of the valley where it deviated into Val di Maso towards Cesuna. Currently, path 666 follows the bed of the train towards Campiello passing near the military cemetery Maggiore Edoardo Ricciardi restored between 2006 and 2009 which houses the soldiers fallen in the area.

Historical attestations
1832 in the Austrian land registry, above Campiello, there is the wording "Road called Costo that goes to Asiago"; then of municipal road "called Zovo" or "from Roncalto to 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.