Nel segno della roncola. Le incisioni rupestri alle pendici del gruppo montuoso Stivo-Bondone (Trento) tra cultura figurativa e paesaggio.

In the sign of the billhook. The rock engravings around Stivo-Bondone mountain group (Trento) between figurative culture and landscape The Stivo-Bondone project stems from a research interest around rock engravings, as an expression linked to the territory and not simply as iconography. While remaining a phenomenon of visual culture, it is the sign of the frequentation of the territory and of the resource exploitation, and manifestation of a traditional and social structure. Engraving the rock therefore takes on a meaning that goes beyond the iconography depicted and takes on a value based on the specific place, which is chosen (not always consciously) for a plethora of cultural and environmental reasons: the presence of suitable supports, relation with the inhabited area, with the productive world and with the "wild" world, with the viability, with the perception of dangers, with spiritual and emotional places and so on. The position of the rocks and the surrounding area are of equal importance as the analysis of the signs traced on the stone. These are often palimpsests, where recognizing an anthropic trait stimulates others to leave one's own, probably, to affirm oneself and/or the community and the belonging to a cultural world in a broad sense. The sites include the large and complex historiated horizontal limestone slabs of the Troiana Valley and the large vertical engraved walls with hammering, graffito and pencil of Manzano. Other sites are simple rocks of modest dimensions, sometimes with few representations, others with dozens of superimposed signs, close to the small villages of Nago, Cei, Calavino, Lasino and Cavedine. All are on old mountain paths, often still paved with pebbles and furrowed by sleds. The engravings studied are often referable to the late medieval and modern era and are placed side by side with contemporary ones. Religious symbols are depicted, geometric figures, inscriptions, acronyms, dates and tools, religious symbols, handprints, anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, quadrilateral, circular, meandering, tree-shaped, buildings religious, trio games, weapons and soldiers. Some figures are recurring, others are specific of some sites. Surprisingly, what unifies all the sites is not the frequent religious symbols, as the presence of the billhook, sometimes with different details and also declined according to different typologies. Often engraved in a contour line with pronounced rostrum and chest, the tracing of the billhook is often similar in style and execution technique, but evident specificities can be found in each site. Between the Late Middle Ages and the Modern Age, the tool is emblematic because it connotes the subsoilers of new lands, the so-called roncadores, and is often mentioned in toponymy or in family names, represents the tool with which nature has been subjugated, made accessible and productive, thus appropriating the territory which is then marked by the sign of the billhook.