Palazzo Schnablegger and fabric shop

So going up, there is Palazzo Schnablegger, the one on the corner that once housed the finance police offices. It is known that in the eighteenth century it belonged to a relative of the family called Struggle. This Struggle was an industrialist in Cave del Predil, and perhaps this was most important building in the lower village. Then, once it ended up with the finance police, it lost its role. Some interesting details still remain: for example, the railings of the small balcony bearing the family initials. And that is one of the 100 – or rather 99 – buildings that Mr. Schnablegger had in the valley, simply to display his wealth. He was a figure who was also a regional councillor, he was an industrialist, he died in the mine; he went to inspect the mine, a rock fell on his head and he died.

Here there was a splendid fabric shop, but the fabric shop was established later. Before that it was an important house, it once housed a convent. In ancient local culture all houses were house-businesses. It was unthinkable that a house should not have the possibility of supporting both the household and its inhabitants, both people and animals. This applies to all the houses recorded during the reign of Maria Theresa, when the Val Canale became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, sold by the bishops of Bamberg. And the idea was truly brilliant: if a house has a certain size, it has access to land and resources for cutting construction timber, firewood, branches to feed the animals, stones for making lime and stones for building floors and walls, and so on.
In this street, a little further on, there were numerous craftsmen, as we have seen, and they had their regular inns. Inns where they went to have Frühstück, breakfast, goulash and cold beer and to relax with a wonderful game of skittles by the river behind the inn. Here there was also a butcher, who slaughtered animals, and in his courtyard, he kept a large pot of broth made from giblets, and the local women went to fetch fresh broth with their mess tins every morning. Behind the butcher there was an inscription that said: “Do not ask me for meat without bone. Even the ox must stand on its feet.” Today this inscription has disappeared together with its symbol, a cow’s head smoking a pipe.