Following the country road, having passed Viù and where the Torre d’Ovarda valley opens up there is a wide basin, rich in vegetation, where Lemie (960 m) is situated.
Different are the theories about the place name origins. Some academics want the name deriving from the Latin word lamiae, meaning the place of the fairies and witches. Others believe it origins from the Latin word limina, meaning the limit of place on the borderline probably of Augusto’s XIth Regione Transpadana (Region across the Po River). The story tells of the ancient Lemie village situated in an area where the fields were called casali, that a flooding in the XVth century completely destroyed it.
Around the year 1000, Lemie was subjected to the Turin Bishop. Later on, with Forno di Lemie and other villages of the Valley, it was granted as feud to the Viscounts of Baratonia. Later on the Giusti of Susa and the Provana of Leinì followed in the feudal jurisdiction. In the XVth century the Arcour obtained the Lemie and Usseglio mining claim. In 1741, the lawyer Giacomo Ottavio Gastaldo, last feudatory, died without heirs and the feud became state property. Already in the XIVth century many iron and copper mines in the area were exploited. For this reason, according to some academics, families from Val Sesia and Bergamo moved to Forno di Lemie where there was a furnace for metal casting. Lemie was an independent municipality until 1810.
