Vilminore di Scalve

For centuries this valley governed itself almost entirely. Charlemagne had given the area to the monks of Tours, who exchanged it with the bishop of Bergamo, who in turn invested the Capitani di Scalve with it; but the captains were in practice stripped of power by the Universitas of Scalve, a feudal institution that closely resembled a republic. It guaranteed the inhabitants exemption from military service, freedom to hunt and fish, tax relief and above all the right to work the mines, which were the real wealth of the place. When Venice arrived in the fifteenth century the privileges remained, and Vilminore was the chief town of the Comunità grande di Scalve; only in 1797, once the Republic had fallen, did it become a comune like the others. The Palazzo Pretorio, built in 1375 and enlarged two centuries later, is still the administrative centre of the valley.

The name says that the village was the smaller of two: Vicus Minor, as against the Vicus Maior that became Vilmaggiore. The Romans had come this far for the iron and the zinc, and for iron men went on digging for centuries. The hardest page is a recent one: on the morning of the first of December 1923 the Gleno dam, which stood above the town, gave way, and the water poured down onto the small settlements below, killing hundreds of people. The valley was left on its knees, and for years people left.