The village was once Plebata, from the Latin plebs, the pieve. The second name came in 1940, for Cardinal Guglielmo Massaia, a Capuchin in Ethiopia, born here in 1809. The houses sit on two facing hilltops: Cornegliano, where the castle stood, and Bricco, seat of the ricetto; the village street links them, past the eighteenth-century town hall.
On the castle site rises the parish church, in bare brick, with a tall drum capped by a domed turret: the building is attributed to Benedetto Alfieri, court architect to the House of Savoy. Church and Ricci palace were to form one building, joined by a gallery on porticoes; the stretch built came down late in the nineteenth century.
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📅 Every year, on 23 April
On 23 April Piovà Massaia celebrates its patron Saint George, after whom, together with Saint Peter, the parish church is named; on the first Sunday of June the Mint Fair is held.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Piovà Massaia, but an easy day trip away.
