Historic Baccin-Cecchetto “rock-grinding” mill, now Stringa

Designed by Giovanni Maria Baccin in 1791, it was built by restructuring a 1638 building and created for the sole purpose of producing mixtures and glazes for ceramics, which is to say to grind the quartz pebbles and calcium carbonate that can be found in the nearby Brenta riverbed, and to crush and pulverize the materials for the glazes.
When Baccin died, in 1817, the mill was inherited by the Cecchetto family, and remained active until 1960. In 1965, it was purchased by the ceramicist Carlo Stringa, who oversaw its restoration and maintenance.
The northern plant, operated by the large wheel, retains two sets of steel stamping crushers; the southern plant, almost exclusively made out of hardwood, is responsible for the crushing of the glaze materials and its subsequent reduction into a fine powder. Today, it is the oldest functioning example of this typology in Europe.
Since 1991, it is subject to monumental protection by the Ministry of Culture.