Giaveno

In 773 Charlemagne, to take from behind the Lombards barricaded at the Chiuse, crossed the watershed and came out on the plain by the village of Gavensis: it was the paths around here. The name, legend says, comes instead from an «iam veni», I have arrived, spoken by Hannibal as he passed.

From 1103 the town belonged to the abbey of San Michele della Chiusa, which in 1347 had it walled: six metres of wall and five round towers. Then came iron — mined above Forno and worked until the nineteenth century — and hemp, spun first at home and then in factories. In 1611 the relics of pope Saint Anterus arrived from Rome; he is patron together with Saint Lawrence. There are 16,281 residents.