"If my reserves of optimism had not long been exhausted , I would suggest Italian legislators who strive to give a legal framework to our democracy, to throw away Pandects and Justinian Codes and come to Cortina to study the local uses, the customs, and the traditions of Ampezzo. Unfortunately, even if they did listen to me, I know only too well that it would lead nowhere. The Ampezzo people have built their way of living and sharing, that is of interpreting and practising their political, economic, and social relationships, over centuries of experience. And experience, sad to say, is an asset that can neither be transferred nor reproduced synthetically. Yet, I have always believed that a history of Ampezzo had to be written if for no other reason than to show something that the other Italians, except very few exceptions, seem to have completely forgotten: how much weight and importance the attachment to the customs of one's ancestors and the faithfulness to one's institutional origins have in the development of a people (and the Ampezzani are a “people”)"
by Indro Montanelli