The typical craftsmanship of the Aosta Valley has its roots in the peasant civilization of the Alps.

The traditional way of life of the mountaineers meant that everyone was a farmer and a breeder at the same time, in order to make the most of the limited resources of a miserly territory, and to become a craftsman if necessary, given that the city markets were distant. and high prices in relation to limited financial resources. Hence the need to produce directly at home, as far as possible, the tools necessary for working in the fields and domestic use.

Generations of peasant-artisans have thus developed, over the centuries, multiple techniques to make the most of certain agricultural and livestock products – hemp, wool and leather – and to make the most of the raw materials that nature offered. in abundant quantities: wood and stone; without forgetting, moreover, that an important mining activity supplied the blacksmiths of the region with copper and above all iron of excellent quality.

The Aosta Valley handicraft, flourishing in past centuries, experienced a crisis in the nineteenth century, due to the introduction of industrial products at competitive prices to the region, which had hitherto been characterized by a largely autarkic economy.

The operators of the sector, since the tools of primary necessity are now imported and mechanized agriculture, have been able to reconvert themselves in recent decades, towards an art craft whose creations do not cease to diversify and refine themselves.