Zorzone fresco competition and Val ParinArt

The day was open to the public from 10 am to 6 pm, with the prize-giving at 6.30 pm. The workshops were run by Let's ART, and in the parish church a small gallery showed works by a painter and a sculptor; at the parish centre there were a refreshment point and a bar, from 12 noon.

The theme was «C'era una volta»: seven photographs of moments of life in the old days, from which eight students of the third-year classes of the «Giacomo e Pio Manzù» state art high school made seven frescoes, one painted by two hands, under the artistic direction of a local teacher and painter. The works are titled «La Caterina», «Fà la fòia», «Ol Lino Piasöla», «La funivia», «Ol pustì», «'Ndóm a cà di Soterai» and «Bat la ranza». An expert jury and a popular jury awarded «Ol pustì», then «Bat la ranza» and «Fà la fòia».

Outside the competition, the Milan urban artist Frode painted the mural «Memorie di luce» on the façade of the Mining and Minerals Museum. At its centre is the word MUSEO, broken into lines, arches and mountain outlines; the large M stands for museum, mountain, Menna and mine, and a girl with a lamp recalls the children who worked in the mines. White, black and grey evoke light and darkness, the bright colours the minerals and the landscape.

The competition was born in 2006 on an idea of the then mayor, with the aim of making Zorzone a «village of frescoes»; there were three editions between 2006 and 2009, then a break of about twenty years. In 2026 the municipal library revived it, with the artistic direction of a local teacher and painter and, as Valbrembanaweb wrote, close attention to tradition and community participation.

With the seven new works the frescoes on the houses of Zorzone number 23. The competition is not announced as an annual event: to know whether there will be another edition, follow the library, at oltrelabiblioteca@gmail.com.

The frescoes are on the walls of the houses, along the village streets: you can look at them freely in every season, walking between the church of the Santissima Trinità and the Minerals Museum, which opens on some afternoons in summer. From the main village you drive up via Capriana, about 4.8 kilometres of narrow road from piazza Tiraboschi to the church; you park in the public car parks near the church and along via Funivia.

Walkers will find in Zorzone the start of CAI path 234 to the Cima di Menna and, just before the village, the start of the Val Parina traverse on CAI path 259, both described in this guide's pages.