Perhaps not everybody knows that the Ossola Valley supplies marble and stone used for the construction of Italian monuments famous throughout the world, among which Milan Cathedral (Duomo), which was built using the special pink marble of the Candoglia Quarry, in the Mergozzo district.
Further up from the Candoglia district, precisely at the mouth of Ossola Valley, lie the primary sources of Milan Cathedral, the quarries from which the marble used for the construction of the Cathedral originated and still used today for the maintenance of one of the most famous Italian religious buildings in the world. Its exceptional physical-chemical features, together with its resistance to the environmental menaces and the crystalline beauty of its pink speckling make it a material of significant value.
It was the founder of the Veneranda Fabbrica (worshipful company) of Milan Cathedral, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who decided to replace brick, the first-considered material, originally intended for the building of the Cathedral, with marble.
For this purpose, in 1387 the Candoglia Quarries were granted to the Veneranda Fabbrica for its use, and transport of the marble blocks was offered free of cost to the city of Milan, via waterborne routes: thanks to the use of rafts (up to 18 meters long) built with beech logs from the Val Grande Park, this transport took place along the rive Toce to Lake Maggiore, then along the river Ticino and the Naviglio Canale (Main canal) to the quay of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan.
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