The hub of this region is Intragna: it overlooks the fertile Pedemonte countryside and stands guard over the entrance to Centovalli, the hundred valleys.
Intragna's famous, majestic, 17th-century bell-tower is a prototype of the architecture favoured by the region's rustic gentry. Necessity forced many people to emigrate: they worked as chimney sweeps, grill-cooks, knife-vendors and above all as dockworkers in the port of Livorno, Italy. Today one can still catch a pleasant hint of Tuscan Italian in the speech of the elderly; set into the iron of a balcony in Palagnedra, one can see the emblem of the Medici family - just to mention two reminders of that adventurous past. The splendid ornamentation of Palagnedra church also has its story to tell.

Here a wandering, early-16th-century painter, Antonio da Tradate, lavishly decorated the choir and at the feet of the Apostles portrayed the rural activity of the months of the year.