Lake Vagli is a water reservoir created in the late 1940s with the damming of the river Edron. The basin was designed to power a hydroelectric plant that would serve the marble basins.

Since then, the lake waters have submerged the small village of Fabbriche di Careggine.

The village was founded around the thirteenth century by iron masters of Brescian origin. With the conquest of the territory by the House of Este, the centre became a major supplier of iron to the State and for this reason it was equipped with the facilities necessary for the artisanal process. 

The lake, which contains 34 million cubic metres of water, is extraordinarily emptied (last time in 1994) to allow maintenance of the dam and on these occasions it is possible to walk through the alleys of the ancient village of Fabbriche di Careggine.

Worth seeing on these rare occasions is certainly the Church of San Teodoro built in the late sixteenth century with a single nave and rectangular apse, and the three-arched bridge along the famous Via Vandelli, which connected the Duchy of Modena to Massa.

Also worthy of note is the Church of Sant'Agostino in the village of Vagli di Sotto, an interesting example of eleventh century religious architecture. The church, which still retains its original shape, consists of two aisles separated by rows of columns with capitals decorated with motifs typical of the Early Middle Ages.

Lake Vagli, general view of the village