The history
ALBERTO PAROLINI
When the renowned Remondini printers of Padua came to Bassano in the mid-1600s, they developed their business so intensely that they were without raw materials in no time. So, they decided to make their own paper, and in the mid-1700s they purchased their own paper mill, employing a hundred or so workers, powered by water from the Oliero river. One of the shortest rivers in the world, its clear, clean waters were just right for making cellulose paste.
There had already been water-powered works along the Oliero river (sawmills, foundries, paper mills, water mills) since the early 16th century. These works belonged to some of the most important Venetian aristocratic families, who in this period had been forced to shift their economic interests inland from the sea.
The building which is now the ticket office and museum was a paper mill that was part of a complex first owned by the Remondini and then the Parolini, both important families of Bassano del Grappa. The building was left abandoned and was then bought by the paper manufacturer Burgo, which had a dam built to channel water from the Oliero river towards a hydroelectric power station in Campolongo, which is still in operation today. Immediately after WWII, the southern part of the building (almost half), was demolished because it was threatening to collapse, putting an end to paper production.
At the museum below the ticket office, the huge quadrangular stone basin for steeping cloths used for paper pulp production and the bases of the limestone rock mills used in the Remondini paper mill for the subsequent refining phase are on public display, as a precious historic reminder. But let’s go back to the Parolini family. With the Napoleonic Wars in the late 1700s and its progressive decline, the mill was bought by Francesco Parolini, a noble businessman from the Bassano area. His son Alberto, a passionate naturalist, was the first to explore the Oliero basin, and discover the entrances to the caves and open them to the public.
The Parolini family owned the whole area along the banks of the Oliero river, and so young Alberto Parolini was free to go on excursions there. Because of the copious, constant flow of water coming down off the mountain and the common knowledge of a couple of caves, he formulated the hypothesis that there might be an underground water network with lots of other caves. He used dynamite to open up a few cracks in the rock and in 1822 managed to cross the little lake inside Covol dei Siori for the first time. It was Parolini who gave the caves all their present-day names: the Parolini cave to Covol dei Siori, Cecilia di Baone cave to Covol dei Veci, in memory of the legendary figure, and the Tivoli waterfalls to the little spring halfway between the two major ones, and then Covol dee Soree, the cave of the sisters, in honour of his two daughters: Elisa, a learned and very studious woman, wife of the mountain climber John Ball, and who died at just 37 years old, and Antonietta, wife of nobleman Paolo Agostinelli, and jealous custodian of the Caves of Oliero and who would continue her father’s endeavours. Alberto Parolini was born on 24th June, 1788.
Brocchi was a frequent visitor to his home, and one of his works printed in 1796 inspired Alberto’s love of botany. Parolini collected and cultivated plants in the kitchen garden, and began the now very famous and ordered garden. In 1805 he went to Padua to study the botanical garden and attend lessons by Bonato. Brocchi also inspired his passion for mineralogy and introduced him to many learned people in Pavia and Milan. In 1811 and 1813 Parolini embarked on educational voyages with his inspiration, and returned from his travels rich in knowledge and minerals. In 1816, he went to Bavaria, along the Rhine, to Holland and in 1817 to France and England. In 1819 he visited Greece and Asia Minor with the English naturalist Philip Barker-Webb. He sent his friend Brocchi a written account of that trip which he subsequently printed. On that voyage he made many important geological observations, and brought back various plants, one of which he baptised Centaurea Parolini. He returned with Webb, via Sicily, to Bassano where he shared what he had gathered along his journey. After that he spent the rest of his life studying, ordering his collections, which were among the most important treasures of the family museum, and which procured him fame not in Italy, but also abroad and saw him showered with much-deserved commendations. He died on 15th January 1867.