Claviere

Claviere stands in the upper Val di Susa, on the eastern edge of the Montgenèvre plateau, right on the border with France. The name comes from the Occitan las Clavieras, which became the French Clavières, still the usual spelling in the early twentieth century; when the s and the accent fell away the plural went with them and the word moved closer to Italian. The etymology is unclear: perhaps the Latin clavis, key, perhaps the old French clavière, a closure; either way it points to the village's place on the pass road. The arms hold both: a gold key set across them, and the two-faced head of Janus, the old name of the site being Mons Janus.

Hannibal and Julius Caesar came through here, yet the route stayed a mule track until Napoleon had it widened. The village passed to the House of Savoy in 1713 with the Peace of Utrecht; destroyed in the Second World War, it was cut in two by the peace treaty of 1947, which ran the frontier between the houses: everything west of the Rio Secco ended up in France, and Claviere, left without ski lifts, became almost an enclave. An exchange of letters in 1967 straightened the border and gave every house back to Italy; the customs post stayed in the middle of the village long afterwards, and the abandoned barriers still stand at its gates.