Nature and Landscapes

Rake

The story

THE BEST OF YOUTH, PASOLINI TRAIL IN IDRIJA

The construction of the rake (water channel) was an important part of the reconstruction and modernization of the mine at the end of the 16th century. According to the plan of the mine manager Georg Adler, the Idrijca river was dammed above the Wild Lake near Kobila and a strong water current was channelled through a 3639 m long wooden trough – the rake. These supplied water to large wooden wheels (kamšti) for a good 350 years. The water flow drove numerous mine lifting and pumping devices, saws, and large forging hammers. Water from the rake was used to extinguish the catastrophic underground fires in 1803 and 1846, and after 1909 part of the water was diverted to the mine’s power plant in Lenštat, which is still in operation today.¹

In the past, miners from Podgora, Cegovnica, Kovačev Rovt, and Gore walked along the rake, and the walking path alongside it has always been attractive to scientists and everyday visitors due to its botanical, geological, and other biotic peculiarities. We assume that the young Pasolini also played/walked along it, as his family lived in the immediate vicinity (point 7) and in later years he wrote some poems collected under the title Via degli amori.

¹ Source: Ob rakah: po poti idrijskih naravoslovcev

We are just a few steps away from the last point of the Pasolini itinerary – the building where the Pasolini family lived. Point 7.

— »Invitation«

Risba rak Jožefa Mraka iz leta 1744 (Avstrijski državni arhiv, Dunaj, Arhiv dvorne komore, zbirka kart, Pc 4. Sken hrani ZAL Enota v Idriji)
The path along the Rake canal, during the Italian occupation. Source: photo archive of the Idrija Municipal Museum.

On my boyish cheek weighs
icy and warm the leaf
of autumn scents.
— Via degli amori (In Idrija in '30)
The Natisone, the gentle governess...
among the cornflowers the lilac butterflies,
and among the thistles, caress the summer.
— My mother's boarding school memories (In Idrija in '30)
In the fragile light, as the rain stops,
I step onto the pergola, but a scarlet,
colorful cry caresses me...
and in my struck heart awaken piercing
visions: weapons, Asias, gods!

The enchanting rainbow bends
over the phantom of the valley.

Towards evening, when the valley floor
sparkles in damp lights,
Mirco will come: and in the sharp darkness
I will tie him to the pergola and shout:
»You will never see your mother again,« and his crying
will exhaust me with happiness.

The drops tremble in the pines...
Dinner is waiting, my father's whistle
calls me. O invisible hills! And stars!
Mirco, still crying, follows me.
— Maternal love (In Idrija in '30)
(In Idrija, in '31)

In the wide square the oaks breathed,
they sparkled. I was nine years old...
I dressed up in my mother's pink
gown (smelling of her body),
went out onto the flooded street, into the virgin
sun. But in my hand I held a skull
of bronze and it frightened a little girl
(or a little boy?)... I ran after her... I see
the bodies of comrades shouting
leaning against the fence... And the cold smell
of the undergrowth...
— From the typescript - TRACES (for a poem about my childhood) (Winter 1946)

The Route

Idria Trail — Point 6 of 7

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