Someo

Someo is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.

The municipality had 258 inhabitants in 2003. The municipality had an area of 32.73 km².

In 2004 the municipality was incorporated into the larger, neighboring municipality Maggia.

In the 19th century many inhabitants migrated to France, England, California and Australia. Antonio Tognazzini founded the town Someo (now Casmalia) to honour the village of origin of his family.

The aspiration to find new opportunities abroad was widespread in some cantons of Switzerland, in particular Ticino, Fribourg and Valais.

The people of the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland had often to migrate because the local resources were insufficient to sustain the entire population.

The migration was mainly seasonal or temporary. One could work during the summer in Milan or other Italian Cities and then go home for winter (or vice versa). With the development of transportation we find Italian-Swiss (or Ticinese, i.e. from Ticino, as they will be called here) in France, England, the Netherlands and other Western European states. In these nations the stay was often longer than a year and eventually definitive.

For several centuries the Italian Peninsula was the main and often unique destination of the seasonal emigration. For longer periods the migrants went to France, England, the Netherlands and other European states.

In the construction sector, the Ticinese were masons, stonecutters, site foremen, stucco workers and sculptors. During the Middle Age, the Comacine masters were the most famous artists from Ticino and the Lombardy. In the 16th century the architects Domenico Fontana, Carlo Maderno and Francesco Borromini work in Rome, Florence and other Italian Cities. Later, Domenico Trezzini, Antonio Adamini, Domenico Gilardi, Giorgio Ruggia and others architects from Ticino built churches and buildings in Russia.

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Wikipedia