Fabbriche di Careggine, the submerged 13th century village that is still visible when the water recedes

Although it isn’t legendary Atlantis, the submerged medieval town of Fabbriche di Careggine is real, and remains largely intact beneath the waters of Tuscany’s Lago di Vagli, Central Italy, still visible whenever its waters are drained for maintenance.

The lake, a hydroelectric reservoir of well-36,000,000 cubic meters, is an artificial body of water created in 1953 when the valley in which it sits was flooded with the building of a dam. However when it was created, at the bottom of the geological depression, sat the village of Fabbriche di Careggine, an ancient settlement that was barely clinging to survival.
Originally settled in the 1200s by a group of blacksmiths, the tiny town managed to survive for hundreds of years, well into the 20th century with just over 30 buildings and around 146 souls that they called it home.
Interestingly, most still practiced ancient methods of farming, just to survive.

Historically, the Via Vandelli desired by sovereign Estensi connected Modena with the Apuan Riviera, and crossed the river in the village of Fabbriche, first on a wooden bridge then later masonry.
Here the street just went back to the valley where there is now the hydroelectric reservoir, crossing the village of Fabbriche di Careggine (sometimes also spelled Fabbrica di Careggine) that the tradition founded by Ferrai, the iron workers of Brescia in the thirteenth century who introduced small factories favored by the presence of the creek Edron particularly rich in water.
The employees become experts after centuries of activity, they found good support in the Duke of Modena Francesco III d’Este, who in 1755, to increase their activities Metallurgy, granted tax exemptions, exemption of military service and many other privileges.
Unfortunately, the Via Vandelli addition to the iron mine that had to be a great road to the other an economic resource in the area, soon fell into ruin.
In fact mines Apuane flourished until the ironworks went into crisis and the “fabbrichini” (so called the inhabitants of Fabbriche) returned to their traditional occupations: agriculture, forestry and pasture.
At the beginning of last century with the trend of marble many villagers of Fabbriche like the other inhabitants of the area, were engaged in it and, for the needs of the marble beds, in the area was built a small hydroelectric plant, downstream of production.
In 1941 the Company Hydroelectric SELT-Valdarno began the construction of large dam ending in 1954 and, in 1947 the village was evacuated and submerged by the new lake.
There were houses, fields, the church of St. Teodoro, in Romanesque style, and a cemetery that reached beyond the small bridge and the 146 above mentioned souls.

When the plan to build the dam and flood the valley basin was realized, the remaining citizens of the village were relocated to the nearby town of Vagli Sotto and, as the basin was slowly filled, their homes were lost beneath the waters.
But not forever, as it has reemerged four times since its drowning in the 1950s, when the basin is completely drained for maintenance, which is necessary to clean up mud from the grids to filter the water channeled to the turbine.
Although there do not seem to be plans to drain the basin again, hopefully Fabbriche di Careggine can come up for air some day soon, in an event of enormous appeal that attract hundreds of thousands of tourists, many of which go to the village, and walk in a surreal setting among streets that pass between the houses half in ruins and covered with a thick blanket of mud, where the story was practically stop to years ’50.

Either way, the lake had a new visitor attraction in 2017, an amazing suspension footbridge spanning the lake at, more or less, its narrowest part.
At the southern end of the bridge is an unusual sculpture park and the bridge itself is illuminated spectacularly at night.

Images from web – Google Research