Waldensian culture, stories and places of a Protestant minority in the valleys of Pinerolo and the search for your origins

The experience

The Waldensian migration represents a very particular story, within the broader events of Italian migration. With the collaboration of the Waldensian Foundation, you will be able to visit the Waldensian Museum, whose rooms we will help you to know, whether you are Waldensian or not, a journey of eight centuries: from the conversion of Waldo in 1174 to the Glorious Repatriation of 1689, from the Letters Patent of Charles Albert that in 1848 granted civil and political rights to the Waldensians, the Agreement between the Italian State and the Waldensian Evangelical Church in 1984. And then, you will discover a memory of the probable life of your ancestors in these valleys, thanks to the exhibition of the renewed ethnographic section, which tells the story of the peasant civilization of the nineteenth century through the reconstruction of the rooms of a house with original elements, donated to the Museum, over the decades, by various Waldensian families.

With the guide, you can continue the visit among the main places, or those most significant for you, of the Eco-historical Museum System of the Waldensian Valleys: monuments, museums and the “little schools” that since the seventeenth century have represented for the Waldensians the place of education and strengthening of their identity.

Finally, the guide will accompany you to visit the village or alpine village from which your ancestors departed, helping you to find the house, the school and the cemetery in which some members of your family of origin may be buried. For this part of the activity, it is suggested to contact the organization well in advance, so that you can devote the necessary time to the specific research of family origins.