Pradleves

Pradleves lies in the Valle Grana, an Occitan-speaking comune where the village is Pradievi, in Piedmontese Pra dj'Eve, the meadow of the waters and the springs; the comune itself, however, traces the name to the Roman gens Levesium, which held wide properties in this part of the valley under the empire. Water returns in the arms, where a castle of two towers joined by a curtain wall stands on an azure river waved with silver, its drawbridge lowered onto the water. In 1940 the name was italianised to Pradleve, and sixteen years later the comune took the old one back.

In 1597 the bishop ordered a parish set up here, partly to keep an eye on inhabitants held receptive to Huguenot preaching. The main settlement was then divided into ruà named after the kin groups living in them, the Franco, the Durando, the Ribero, the Gertosio; masters from outside built forges and furnaces here. The patron, San Ponzio, was a soldier of the Theban legion martyred in 286 and venerated here alone. One of the rare Italian stations of Linum narbonense is protected here.