Selva di Cadore

In the territory of Selva di Cadore, high in the Val Fiorentina, the burial of a Mesolithic hunter was found, the man of Mondeval de Sora: people came up here to hunt as far back as the Stone Age. Later came the shepherds, and on the rocks of the Civetta, the Coldai and the Col Davagnin someone carved three abbreviated words, FIN BEL IVL: they marked the boundary between the land of the Belluno people and that of Julium Carnicum, and they have been there for two thousand years.

In the Middle Ages the valley did not belong to those who lived in it: it belonged to the regole of Mondeval and Festornigo, over the mountain, and whoever wanted to stay up here all year round, and not only in summer, had to pay for the privilege. The houses were then gathered into small clusters so as not to steal ground from the pastures, and set on the slope that catches most winter sun; crops were grown up to sixteen hundred metres and hay was cut up to two thousand.