Bienno

Bienno sits on the eastern flank of the middle Val Camonica, north of Lago d'Iseo. From the tenth century the Benedictines diverted the Grigna stream into an artificial canal called the Vaso Re, which still powers a string of fucine, small water-hammer forges, along its course. The valley was working iron from the bloomery furnaces of late Antiquity through the high blast furnaces of the late Middle Ages; Bienno became the master village, what Brescia called il paese dei magli, the village of the hammers.

The centro storico runs along the stream in stone houses, frescoed façades and arcaded passages. In the church of Santa Maria Annunciata, Girolamo Romanino frescoed the presbytery around 1540 with scenes from the life of the Virgin, including a Marriage of the Virgin on the right wall and a Presentation in the Temple on the left. Each August the Mostra Mercato fills the streets with working forges, demonstrations of wrought-iron technique, and craftsmen from across the Alpine arc.