Riva Valdobbia was a seasonal pasture area in the summer from ancient time and vaguely named Pietre Gemelle, the Twin Stones, as the main landmark of the plain are two blocks, still there at the north end of Riva.

The settlement became permanent and finally was detached from Scopa administration to form an independent parish in 1326, dedicated to Saint Micheal.

In that century, the first Walser colonizations took place: from Macugnaga and Gressoney, populations of German language got permission to settle in the higher ground of the area with their typical small independent hamlets of few houses with community oven, fountain and a small chapel.

Those hamlets was (still are) a short distance one from the other, forming a sort of larger community both in the Vogna Valley and in the area nowadays named Alagna as a modification of "Im-land", "the country/land".

Soon after, the Walsers pretended to have a priest in their own language instead of attending to the "Italian" parish church in Riva: the St.
John church was built in the center of Alagna and created as a separate parish in 1475.

Riva Valdobbia was on the border of those two cultures and two languages, in a melting pot that did not work up too much between the Italians and the Germans, while the two communities were divided in separate administrations or consolidated in the old “Pietre Gemelle” back and forth during centuries.

The well-known distrust between the two communities is still there in local traditions: an old saying is that the Riva's dog guards the Alagna's pig to get to and eat the Vogna Savoy cabbages—in other versions, to get to the Mollia's Raviciooin, another kind of cabbage.

The heraldic symbol of dog, vigilant and loyal to the power, was associated to Riva but was never official—the seal of the municipality bears the two belfrys of the church - but it is still present in local popular culture as the Garuf, the local term for "hunting dog", mainly shown as symbol of the local carnival opposed to the "Swine", Alagna's mask, a pig.
Riva Valdobbia was a seasonal pasture area in the summer from ancient time and vaguely named Pietre Gemelle, the Twin Stones, as the main landmark of the plain are two blocks, still there at the north end of Riva.
The settlement became permanent and finally was detached from Scopa administration to form an independent parish in 1326, dedicated to Saint Micheal.
In that century, the first Walser colonizations took place: from Macugnaga and Gressoney, populations of German language got permission to settle in the higher ground of the area with their typical small independent hamlets of few houses with community oven, fountain and a small chapel.
Those hamlets was (still are) a short distance one from the other, forming a sort of larger community both in the Vogna Valley and in the area nowadays named Alagna as a modification of "Im-land", "the country/land".
Soon after, the Walsers pretended to have a priest in their own language instead of attending to the "Italian" parish church in Riva: the St.John church was built in the center of Alagna and created as a separate parish in 1475.
Riva Valdobbia was on the border of those two cultures and two languages, in a melting pot that did not work up too much between the Italians and the Germans, while the two communities were divided in separate administrations or consolidated in the old “Pietre Gemelle” back and forth during centuries.
The well-known distrust between the two communities is still there in local traditions: an old saying is that the Riva's dog guards the Alagna's pig to get to and eat the Vogna Savoy cabbages—in other versions, to get to the Mollia's Raviciooin, another kind of cabbage.
The heraldic symbol of dog, vigilant and loyal to the power, was associated to Riva but was never official—the seal of the municipality bears the two belfrys of the church - but it is still present in local popular culture as the Garuf, the local term for "hunting dog", mainly shown as symbol of the local carnival opposed to the "Swine", Alagna's mask, a pig.
Riva Valdobbia