The Tacc’s mill: the ancient mill of the seventeenth-century

It is a seventeenth-century L-shaped building, built on two floors, including the basement. On the east side, opposite to the road, there are hydraulic powered structures, two vertical wheels, and a third horizontal, placed in an interior of the building itself. The mill was moved by the water redirected from the Melezzo river about fifty meters away from the building by a long rush (which originally provided power also for another hydraulic machine).

Why “mulin dul Tacc”?

This mill, the largest of the 54 still existing in the first decades of the last century in Vigezzo, remained operational until 1979 thanks to Francesco Ielmoli, known as “Tacc”, the last miller of a resourceful family of  Toceno, which already owned the mill at the end of the 19th century. Mulin dul Tacc means, at the end, Tacc’s Mill.

Since the year 2000: restoration and functional recovery

In the early years 2000, the mill was purchased by the Municipality. The organization has provided a cautious restoration, aimed to guarantee a functional recovery, both of equipment and of the building, including it also in the itinerary of the Ecomuseum in the summer of 2007.

After restoration work, the drive is now guaranteed by a smaller water circuit, maintaining the primitive set of channels and bulkheads, by which the wheels are powered.

Inside Tacc’s mill, there are three mills dedicated to different food processing operations: the first for rye and wheat, the central to obtain whole flour (without separation from the bran) and the third for the chestnuts and the maize.

A fourth grinder was instead used as a crusher to extract the essential hemp elements for the local textile production.

The precious work of the mill, which was last active among the many in the valley, was available to all the valley’s inhabitants. In addition to the equipment, the mill housed the miller’s lodgings, areas dedicated to rolling current maintenance, and also a small stall for a donkey dedicated to grain transport. All of these environments have been recovered and represent a real historical experience not only of the mill but of everything that was orbiting around it, including a series of panels and audiovisuals that, in addition to illustrating its operation, span the range of products worked there by offering a useful didactic support.