The Molini di Stalis are a complex of mills recently restored thanks to a recovery intervention promoted by the Municipality of Gruaro and the Provinces of Venice and Pordenone. They are located on the banks and on an island in the middle of the Lemene River, near an ancient ford.

The Molini di Stalis, which are exactly on the border between Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto, along the course of the Lemene River, have a history that is closely linked to that of the nearby Abbey of Santa Maria di Sesto. The fundamental date for this location is 1182, when Pope Lucius III issued a Bull extending papal protection over the Benedictines of Sesto and confirming the privileges of the ancient Abbey. This document also mentions Vincaretum cum curte and Staules cum curte.

But what was a curtis? It indicated an organization of people and means with a specific economic function. In our case, the etymology of the term Stalis – which evidently means "stable" – helps us understand that there were shelters for animals within a larger property. The lordship of the Abbey over Stalis was then confirmed by Pope Gregory IX in 1236 and later by a favorable sentence to Abbot Ermanno in 1298.

As you can see, up to this point the documents do not mention any mill, which is the main functional and landscape feature of this beautiful place.

When did mills generally originate? The water mill spread in Europe after the year 1000; if before energy was derived from forests, now it moved along watercourses. In the 13th century, the hydraulic saw was invented.

If this also happened in our territories, then one can hypothesize an immediate interest from the Abbots towards a location and a mill included in their privileges. The fact remains that the first documents that certainly attest to the existence of the Mills date back to 1432, when the patriarchal state had already been incorporated into the Serenissima Republic of Venice and Abbot of Sesto was Tommaso de’ Savioli, the last among the residential abbots. Other documents concerning Stalis date back to:

- 1522, and attest to the obligation of the inhabitants of Bagnara (a hamlet of today's municipality of Gruaro) to go and grind their grains at Stalis;

- 1583, and consist of a seven-year lease contract for the mill, including stables, saw, millstones, pestles, and fishpond;

- 1656, and it is a census survey that records, in Stalis, the presence of 21 men, 15 women, 6 boys, and 8 girls, for a total of 50 people;

- 1688, when two families appear linked to the subsequent history of the mill: the Portogruaresi Tasca as owners and the Brussolo as millers.

The last fundamental document that concludes the earliest history of the site is the Napoleonic Cadastre, when the Mills were aggregated to the territory of the Municipality of Gruaro, and thus definitively separated from Venchiaredo.

In the 1800s and 1900s, agriculture, and therefore the landscape, underwent significant transformations: the milling art suffered an irreversible decline.

From 1810 is the description in the aforementioned Napoleonic cadastre, which attests to the presence of a four-wheel mill, faced, on the right side of the river, by a house, a spinning mill, and a saw. In 1839, based on an Austrian survey, the mill appears divided into two parts: a water grain mill and a grain mill with a barley pile. On the right bank, we find two farmhouses and a water-powered sawmill.

We quickly move into the mid-1900s, when work activity continued uninterrupted until the beginning of World War II. At the end of the conflict, the mills resumed activity, mainly grinding corn.

The mill on the island operated until about 1960.

Information taken from “I mulini di Stalis” publication edited by the Municipality of Gruaro with texts by Vincenzo Gobbo, Eugenio Marin, Clelia Munciguerra, Luca Vendrame, 2001.