The bond between the human being and the sulphur is really old. Archeologists supposed that Romans, and maybe also populations of the late age of Bronze, could use it for the tanning of hides and for whitening clothes. The ancient populations picked up just the material that rose to the surface along the river Fanante. With the discovery of the gun powder, it’s probable that the human being started his adventure underground looking for the sulphur rock. It’s indirectly attested by the presence of mills for the production of gunpowder in Novafeltria and in Campiano di Talamello. From the XVII century we have the first sporadic news of some mining activities and from the XVIII century several owners and companies followed up on one other for the exploitation of the sulphur veins of Perticara and of Marazzana.

The family Masi, the count Giovanni Cisterni (who realized also a sulphur refinement in Rimini), the Picard society, the anonymous society of the sulphur mines of Romagna and the Trezza Albani society, managed the mining activity applying technological developments and facing important crisis. The first big wells were dug and the mine was becoming deeper and deeper, in 1850 the first Calcheroni were built in order to melt sulphur and in order to substitute old systems and from 1880 the first Gills furnaces started to work. In 1917 the Montecatini Society bought the concession for exploiting the sulphur ore body of Perticara for a few money and after some drillings and some mining researches they realized how the ore body was big. It was the beginning of the most import factory of this area. Thousands of men dug kilometers of galleries and the rhythm of the mining extraction scanned the life of entire generations.

In 1938 the plant of Perticara reached the top of its extractive activity with the production of about 50000 tons of raw sulphur and with the employment of 1600 people. After the second world war the mine started a slow decline: the concurrence of foreign countries that extracted sulphur with different processes and with low costs, the slow exhaustion of the ore bodies, the technological overcoming and the increasing of the interest of the Montecatini Society for the chemical sector drove to the dramatic closing of the mine of Perticara.