Vallelaghi

The comune came into being on the first of January 2016 from the union of Padergnone, Terlago and Vezzano, and its name says no more than where it is: the valley of the lakes. Its coat of arms is a summary of the three earlier ones — the lion of Vezzano, the olive branch of Padergnone, the boat of Terlago — with three waves standing for the three lakes. The territory remains a string of small villages, each with its own parish church: Fraveggio, Covelo, Ciago, Margone, Ranzo, Lon, Monte Terlago, Santa Massenza.

At Santa Massenza stands the power station built, along with the whole Sarca-Molveno complex, between 1947 and 1957: at the time it was the largest in Europe, and it is still the most powerful of those built entirely inside a mountain, in a hall a hundred and eighty metres long. The work employed up to eight thousand people for ten years, recruited almost entirely in the surrounding valleys, and it slowed the emigration. For the digging of the tunnels alone the designers had budgeted one death per kilometre, that is fifty-one lives; the memorial stone along the road carries thirty-three names, but going through the local press of the time one counts at least forty-one.