Ciao. Welcome back. Just after the arrow pointing left, you will see a little red box hanging on the wall. There are 21 spread around the village. They mainly illustrate the architecture of Mezzano which in turn describes life in the past, agriculture and farming.
In this square you can see two wood-stack installations. On the left, “The Accordion”; this diatonic accordion seems to look like a star and brings to mind the harmony of melodic notes and the harmony of those pieces of wood that seem born to be with each other, like the notes on a score. Talking of accordions: Mezzano boasts the oldest folkloristic group in Trentino, formed in 1928.
There is another wood-stack on the balcony in front of you: “The function of a balcony”, quite an exacting name for something so obvious; its showy simplicity strikes one. It is an enormous maize cob, full of golden corn grains, it seems to be teasing you, up there unreachable on the balcony and with the hens below, their mouths watering! In truth, the work of this representation of maize is to remind us of the traditional function of a balcony, when the maize cobs were hung there to dry in the sun.
All around, these buildings are made up of three floors and here is the shrewdness of the farming community: constructing each house to the same height on a slope, resulted in every house being one floor higher than the preceding one, so that each one could benefit from sunlight.
The ground floor would have been a stable, a commercial activity, workshop, or cellar; the typical cellars with a barrelled vault. The second floor had access from the rear of the building and was used as a hay barn. The access was facilitated by the incline and improved with a ramp. One could therefore take a cart up or a large sledge loaded with wood. The third floor under the roof had various uses.
A trapdoor meant that hay from the barn could be dropped down into the stable without excessive effort.
The third floor as I had said before, was used as a granary and loft.
Now take the narrow street straight ahead of you.
