Alpe Bettelmat - Val Formazza - Alps, Italy

Alpe Bettelmatt (Bettelmatt Alm in German), is a mountain pasture located in Italy, in Piedmont, within the territory of the municipality of Formazza.
Owned by the de Rodis lords, who leased the lands of that area to the Walser population from the Valais in the 13th century, at the end of 1200 it passed as an inheritance to a branch of the family transplanted in the Valais to Guido III descendant of Guido I who had founded the church of San Michele Formazza and who in 1210 had obtained from Otto IV of Brunswick the feudal investiture of the current territory of the Formazza. Over the years the de Rodis family developed a great interest in trade through the Alpine passes, which is why the Bettelmatt pastures were not sold to the Walser who had begun to colonize the area of ​​the upper Formazza, but remained the property of the de Rodis family. .

At the end of the fifteenth century, the feudal rights of the de Rodis had become only a formality and after several attempts to stand as an independent land, the Formazza passed under the lordship of the Sforza. A parchment from 1484 tells us that the territory where Alpe Bettelmatt is located belonged to the Valais state.

Alpe Bettelmatt remained the property of families from the Swiss Valais until the early 1800s.

On November 10, 1821, in Brig, the notary Valentino Fest stipulates the sale of Alpe Bettelmatt to Alessandro Anderlini of Formazza, unknowingly sanctioning the sale of a piece of Switzerland to Italy. Today, Alpe Bettelmatt is still owned by the descendants of Alessandro Anderlini and Modesta Maria Valci di Formazza.