Crissolo

Crissolo lies at the head of the Po valley, under Monviso, and within its territory, at Pian del Re, the Po comes out of the rock. That name seems to have been given in the sixteenth century after the French king Francis I, who kept outposts here against the duchy of Savoy; the plain below, called Pian Melzé in Occitan, larch wood, was then renamed Pian della Regina so as not to slight his wife, Claude of France. Of the village name itself the likeliest reading is the Latin cruceolum, for the cross shape of the mountain area.

The village stood on the salt road to France, and to shorten it the marquis of Saluzzo Ludovico II had the mountain pierced: the Buco di Viso, opened in 1480 and the first Alpine tunnel in history, avoids the dangerous Colle delle Traversette and comes out in the French Guil valley. A kilometre above the village stands the sanctuary of San Chiaffredo, built in 1440 for Ludovico I: the saint was a soldier of the Theban legion, and old legends put his garrison here.