Cles

Cles stands in the Trentino Alps as the principal town of Val di Non. Monte di Cles and Monte Peller rise to the west, the latter reaching 2,319 metres, while the Noce valley opens eastward.

Water has long defined the valley by shaping routes, farming land and settlement across the mountain floor. An inscription from Cles records Emperor Claudius’s edict of AD 46 granting Roman citizenship to the Anauni, Sinduni and Tulliasses.

The inscription shows how Alpine communities were absorbed into Roman law and political organization, and it also preserves finds about fiscal disputes. Church buildings, castles and the surrounding wooded slopes mark a long-settled corridor between high mountains, where control of the valley and its water supplies remained essential.