Santo Stefano di Cadore

Santo Stefano stands where the Padola runs into the Piave — the confluence is inside the built-up area — and it is the main centre of the Comelico. Above it is Monte Col, and Monte Col does an odd thing to the village: on the shortest days of the year it keeps it in shadow, so that, between the scarce sun and the temperature inversion, the town can turn out colder than the frazioni that stand higher up the mountain but do get the light. In winter it goes down to twenty below. People came up here to be safe. The first inhabitants of these valleys were probably fugitives, and the sources give more than one account and admit they cannot decide between them: one says the main body came from the Pusteria, after the Bavarians occupied that valley in 565 — those who were not killed and would not submit went to occupy the uninhabited valleys of Comelico, Gardena, Badia and Livinallongo, the Ladin valleys; another says upper Comelico was peopled by families from the vicinìa of Domegge, and the eastern part, which is this one, by people from beyond the Piave. Ladin is still spoken here, and in Ladin the village is called Sa Stefi.

In 1077 the emperor Henry IV ceded the county of Friuli to the patriarch of Aquileia, and from then the patriarchs held the Cadore, sub-infeudating it to their vassals — the Caminesi among them — until 1420, when Venice took over. The bargain the Serenissima made here is worth reading in full: it recognised the legislative and administrative autonomy of the Cadorini, it recognised that the woods and the pastures were theirs, it left them the free use of the waters and it exempted their property from taxes and duties. In exchange it took the timber. The trade flourished: the trees of the Cadore came down the Piave on rafts as far as Venice, where they became ships and lagoon buildings. It lasted until 1797. When the Veneto was annexed to Italy in 1866, this comune was not called Santo Stefano but Comelico Inferiore. And in 1915 the village found itself right behind the front line, which ran along the pass of Monte Croce Comelico, the western Carnic chain and the Dolomites of Sesto.