Description
The famous Cremonese luthier Stradivari used the 'sound' spruce of Paneveggio and Fiemme and seems to have visited these forests annually to choose the best pieces to build his famous instruments.
An anecdote recounts that 'in the spring of 1719, as he passed through Bellamonte on his way to Paneveggio for his periodic visit, he saw that some people were finishing building a "baito tabià" with overlapping logs. [...].
The Stradivari stopped the "some" [beasts] and started talking to the farmer, having noticed that one of the "piane" (beams) was right for him. The farmer there and then did not want to deprive himself of that trunk, which he needed immediately, it was numbered, and it already had the grooves at the ends for overlapping, but Stradivari did so much that he convinced him to give him the wood and keep it inside the building, he paid him with a large sum of Veronese liras, saying that he would pick it up the following year and take it to Cremona with the "some". And so it was."
And from that beam was probably born one of the much-admired violins that is still used today by talented artists.
Aldo Zorzi
(Strenna Trentina, 1985)