Lemie lies in the Valli di Lanzo, on the left bank of the Stura di Viù, and scholars disagree about its name: some derive it from the Latin lemiae, "witches", others from limina, "boundary". From the fourteenth century iron and copper mines were opened here, and the ore was smelted at the hamlet of Forno; skilled hands came for it from the Bergamo country and the Valsesia. At Forno a single-arch stone bridge with a shrine at its centre has crossed the Stura since 1477.
In August 1465 a flood wrecked the village end to end, and rebuilding took years. In a century and a half Lemie has emptied to a twelfth of its former people. Its arms came late: the comune had no emblem, and was allowed only recently to bear the shield of an old noble family that lived here, a gold eagle on blue above a blue-and-gold chequy.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Lemie
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
