Before being the Mattei mill, the mill was called the Franceschi mill, from the name of its owner. It belonged to an ancestor of Marcel Fortini, himself a native of the region, who made the photographs of this book. The Franceschi mill ceased operating at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lightning had struck the building; the damage was very serious and restoring it proved impossible, so it was left abandoned. On the very spot where this mill was built, in very ancient times, fires were lit at night to guide boats through this dangerous pass. Fire and its metaphorical expression, the thunderbolt (coup de foudre), are not alien to the story of this mill.