Italian Alps / Sketches in the Mountains of Ticino, Lombardy, the Trentino, and Venetia

by Douglas William Freshfield

23. A winged demon; above him the inscription 'Io seguito la morte e questo mio guardeano, d'onde e scripto, li mali oprator chi meno al inferno.' He carries on his back a large open volume, in which are written the seven deadly sins. Beneath the 'Dance of Death' are allegorical representations of the seven deadly sins and the date 1539.

APPENDIX E.
THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE BRENTA GROUP.

There has been much confusion of late years as to the names to be given to the two highest summits of this range, which stand respectively N. and S.W. of the Bocca di Brenta.

The old and very incorrect Government Map of Tyrol gives the name of Cima Tosa to the N. peak, and none to the S. and highest. Mr. Ball, the first mountaineer who explored this country, adhered, on his first visit, to the name given by the Survey to the N. peak, and to the S. gave the name of Cima di Brenta or Brenta Alta. Lieutenant Payer followed Mr. Ball's example in his article on the Bocca di Brenta in the fifth volume of the Austrian Alpine Club's Publication.

When, however, in 1865, Mr. Ball made from Molveno the first ascent of the S. peak, he found that his guide, a native of that village, knew it as 'La Tosa.' Mr. Ball therefore seemed in his last edition disposed to give the collective name of Brenta to the chain, and to call the S. peak the Cima Tosa; but he ignored the difficulty that the almost equally important N. summit, hitherto known to chartographers and English climbers as the Cima Tosa, was left nameless.

In this state of things the attention of the newly formed Trentine Alpine Society was called to the subject, and they promptly appointed a committee to inquire into and consider the local usage. The results of this inquiry are now shortly stated.

The Val di Brenta gives its name to the group. The point S. of the Bocca di Brenta is known as La Tosa throughout the country. The peak N. of the Bocca (the Cima Tosa of the map) is called in Val Brenta the Cima di Brenta. The following names are wrongly given in the Austrian map:—Val Asinella for Vallesinella, Val Agnola for Val Agola, Val Dalcon for Val d'Algone. The names Bocca di Vallazza, Bocca della Vallesinella, Bocca dei Camozzi, and Passo d'Ambies, suggested for the passes discovered of late years by English climbers, are, as I understand, accepted. The Bocca della Vallesinella is the pass first called Bocca di Tosa by Mr. Tuckett.

Some curious etymological details are added to the report. Tosa, supposed by Mr. Ball to be equivalent to 'virgin,' is stated to be a contraction of tosata = shaven, a title derived from the bald, rounded aspect of the peak when seen from the east. 'Brenta' is a local word in the Sarca valley for a shallow vessel used for soup in cottages: thence it is applied to the stagnant pools or tarns common in the dolomite glens. In this way the word gets attached to the glen itself, and finally to the peak above it. Cima di Brenta is, it would seem, therefore, the Italian equivalent for Kesselkogel.

There was one other quarter to which it was natural to look for information—the officers at the head of the Viennese Ordnance Survey Department, who have recently re-surveyed the Trentino. But every application for information—although made to the Head of the Department through influential Austrian friends, and in the name of the English Alpine Club—was met by a refusal, or a promise broken as soon as made. I finally sent an extract from the old Government Map, with a request that the names adopted in the new survey for the two chief peaks of the Brenta group might be written across it. Even this the office declined to do. Such a refusal was the more unexpected as the French and Swiss Engineers have always been ready to give every information, even where there was real prospect of rivalry between the private work in hand and the Government survey.

From photographs I have seen of some portions of the new map, I feel sure that although much too large for general use it will be valuable to explorers, and I recommend every mountaineer intending to visit the Trentino or the Italian Tyrol to inquire through Messrs. Stanford if it is yet out, and if possible to purchase the sheets he will require.