Avolasca

Avolasca, Avulasca in the dialect of Tortona, sits on a ridge dividing the Grue from the Ossona, ending in the spur of Tortona. The ending -asca is Ligurian, and so is the cooking; the name appears in Lombard times as Audelassum, Audelascum and Audelasci, among the holdings of the abbey of San Colombano di Bobbio. In the Middle Ages it belonged first to the county and then to the bishopric of Tortona, passing later to Genoese families. In 1635 its parish broke away from that of Palenzona, one of its own hamlets.

Of the castle, probably tenth-century, one foundation wall survives: in its place stands the parish church of San Nicola, raised inside it around the year 972, perhaps by enlarging an earlier feudal chapel. The former kindergarten, now private, was designed by Gino Coppedè; Alessandro Cerruti gave it to the village in 1926, named for Marina and Caterina Cerruti. At Oliva grows a monumental downy oak, reckoned to be over two hundred and fifty years old.