MUSEO DELLO
SPAZZACAMINO
(SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE)

The chimney-sweeper museum was opened in August 1983, and it is located in the park of Villa Antonia, a splendid edifice in Risorgimento Square.  

The museum houses the chimney-sweeper’s tools such as the “rasp”, “il brischetin” (a kind of broom),“il riccio” (an iron tool used for rasping), “la squareta” (a chimney flue with “il riccio” on the top of it),”la caparüza” (a small bag to be protected from soot), “il sach” ( a sack to be filled with soot, photos, etc.).

In 1300 the “vigezzini” emigrated to the borderlands, and in 1600 they emigrated to France, Germany, Holland and other European countries.
The emigrants became chimney-sweepers. But some of them, for their intelligence, enterprise and willingness, ascended the social ladder, and they became bankers, or jewellers (such as Ferino, Borgnis, Guglielmazzi). Gian Battista Mellerio founded an important chain of jeweller’s shops and he was the personal supplier of queen Maria Antonietta. Pietro De Zanna of Zornasco invented in 1839 a hot water radiator.

In 1837 Vigezzo counted 964 absents (5377 inhabitants) and 500 were chimney-sweepers, or stove-repairers. The percentage of children emigrated is high but the real exodus-exploitation began at the end of 1800 until 1920’s and 1930’s. Because of poverty almost every family had to “rent” the children to owners who searched for boys to transform into chimney-sweepers. The owners preferred recruiting 6 years old children because their slender height permitted an agile ascent through the narrow tunnel to be swept.