Camburzano

Canbruscian

Carburzano was probably a Roman camp for those extracting gold in the Bessa area. Was part of the Savoia’s dominium since 1379 and for its healthy and attractive geographical position has been a vacation destination for many middle-class families from Turin and land around it during the nineteeth-twentieth centuries..The land resources have always been scarce as we are told by detailed sources. Superintendent Blanciotti describes Camburzano’s land  as “poor growing”, with production of the quantities of cereals for the population

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 non sufficient, “they produce little, and bad wine, not much rye and mais, but reasonable amount of chestnuts”. Hemp was the only exchange good with the neighbouring villages. The crop was placed to soak, then pressed and washed. It was the duty of women to disentangle by hand and spin the fibres during the long dark hours of winter, and these were then sent to Sala or Mongrando to be woven with hand looms.
The “wealth” of Camburzano, as written in a report by the same Blanciotti, was the village male population which found seasonal work abroad and from the census of 1858 we know that 89 bricklayers, 13 master masons, 20 apprentices, 5 decorators, 4 carpenters and 1 marble-cutter, went away, all from a village counting only 900 inhabitants.

  For 9 months of the year, women were the only one responsible for production (crops cultivation and rearing of animals) and of reproduction (care of children, house and business). Turin, France and Switzerland were the favoured destinations. The building industry was undoubtely the most important sector in the history of emigration from Camburzano, with just a few exceptions.

From the research carried out by Ecomuseo on 32 biographical cards (36% of the inhabitants in 1911)  we have 40% emigrating to France, 33% to Switzerland, 15.7% to other European countries, 10% to South America and 1.3 % to Australia. Analising the professions, we find 46% masons and bricklayers, 13.5% contractors and 5.4% of decorators, a total of 64,9% employed in the building industry.

. The family names most frequent in the biographical cards are Crida and Piantino. The emigrant with the oldest date of birth is Giacomo Luigi Fortunato Piantino, born in 1841, painter emigrated to France.