San Cipriano Church at the Valley’s End

Winter idyll in the Tires Valley

San Cipriano Church at the Valley’s End The San Cipriano Church is one of the most photographed images in the Tires Valley. Oral tradition holds that at one time, when most of the houses were located at the valley’s end, this was the Parish Church of the area.

F From the village district of San Cipriano, known to the locals as the Hintertal, or the valley’s end, the otherwise narrow Tires Valley opens out into woods and meadows. At the valley’s end, there used to be considerably more houses than there are nowadays. It was initially depopulated by an earthquake, and later, in the 17th century, by the plague. The Black Death apparently ravaged through the Tires Valley, and during this time a further small chapel was built on a meadow above what is now the village centre, consecrated to the protectors from the plague, St. Sebastian and St. Rochus. According to the legend, a farmer with his oxen and cart brought the victims of the plague to this spot and buried them there. Every time he loaded up the cart, he is said to have exclaimed “Hü, es Roatn, mit die Toatn!”, which translates roughly as “Giddy up horses, with the corpses!”. The Tires parish church, the St. George Church, was originally much smaller than it is today and was renovated in Romanesque style in the 13th century with a rounded apsis like the San Cipriano Church. The Baroque renovation of the Tires parish church followed in 1767. Today, all that remains is the lower part of the church tower with its arched Roman windows.

Text: Katja Sanin Photo: Helmuth Rier

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The San Cipriano Church, which today stands in the centre of the valley’s end backed by the Catinaccio Mountain, has, in contrast, maintained its original Romanesque style. The valley’s end has always been the door to the woods and mountain

pastures and, most importantly, to the Niger Pass with its link to the Fassa Valley. Up until the flooding of 1882, lining the banks of the Rio Bria there were 46 businesses ranging from mills to sawmills and smithies from San Cipriano to the river mouth in Isarco, in Prato all’Isarco, who used the water from the river. In memory of these times and of the old craftsman professions, an old watermill has been restored to fully-functioning glory at the entrance to the village of Tires. An old Venetian sawmill, which has also been resurrected and is fully functioning, can be visited in the Nature Park House at the end of the valley. Venetian sawmills are wooden, vertical timber band saws. It was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century together with Venetian timber merchants. Before its invention, planks were cut using muscle power alone.

Weather Bells and Cyprian Bulls. Ever since 1964, when it was plundered dry for the third time, visitors must request permission from the sacristan to see the inside of the small San Cipriano Church.

It is often used by the local Tires population for baptisms. Masses are only celebrated during the processions to San Cipriano and the church-days at the end of the valley in honour of Saints Cyprian and Justina, celebrated on September 26th.

The family living in the immediate vicinity of the church has been acting as sacristan of the church for three generations now. »

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The captivating simplicity of the Romanesque chapel

The church’s large bell tower is known as the ‘Cyprian Bull’ and is said to have been excavated from rock debris behind the Ciamin bridge. In the past, the San Cipriano Church was located behind the Ciamin River, where the village centre lies today, until a part of the village and the church on the other side of the river were buried by a landslide.

In the late middle ages, the church was built on its present site and, on the other side of the Rio Ciamin there were still so many houses that during the Corpus Christi procession, 24 pairs of bridal maidens dressed in white made their way over the Ciamin bridge to San Cipriano.

The church was built in late Romanesque style in the 13th century, with barrel vault, rounded apsis and low bell tower. In 1583, it was renovated on the order of the Lords of Fiè-Colonna. The wooden roof was replaced by a vault and the windows were enlarged. The altar was also built at this time; of great cultural and historical value, the two patron saints of the little church are depicted in its centre. The tabernacle with its image of a bleeding Jesus is also worthy of note.

On the south-facing outer wall, we find a fresco dating to the 17th century, depicting the miraculous rescue of the Platzliner meadow. We can see both saints, Cyprian and Justina, in this image, spreading their cloaks over the Alpine meadows to protect the grazing animals from the thunderbolts hurled down into the valley by God from a black cloud. For generations, the belief has been passed down in Tires that storms can be averted by a timely ringing of the ‘Cyprian Bull’. This belief originates in the notion that church bells are consecrated to the church and that, by ringing them, storms can be dissipated. The moment a storm front or stormy clouds appear on the horizon, the church sacristan is called upon to ring the bells.

The belief is still held to this day amongst a number of the villagers, both young and old, and so the church curator is sent to ring the ‘Cyprian Bulls’, even this very year, when the Berglertafel mountaineers’ open-air banquet on the Proa meadow overlooking the Catinaccio threatened to become a washout. The event organisers and guests were lucky as, aside from a couple of drops of rain at the beginning of the evening, the guests remained dry and the storm held off. «

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