History
Originally the area seems to have been used for summer grazing, Costa seems to have been populated year-round only since 1300. The town faces northeast and gets very cold in winter; as a result Costa was known in local slang as "Valle Imagna's warehouse of snow" (la nevera della Valle imagna).
When the Republic of Venice annexed the province of Bergamo in 1428, the town found itself on the borders between Venice and the Duchy of Milan. This is reflected in the slang of the town, which refers to "foreigners" as bir, the equivalent of sbirri, a medieval police force. It has been suggested that this dates back to customs officials sent from Venice to patrol the borders of the republic.
In the Counter-reformation, a bishop sent a dispatch deploring the state of the village's church that was a result of the poverty of the area. A plague pit is evidence of the 1630 epidemic described by Alessandro Manzoni.
Since the earliest years of the twentieth century, Costa Valle Imagna has been renowned as a summer resort.
The patron saint is San Rocco, who is celebrated on 16 August with a procession, fireworks, and dances in the public square.
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“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)