Frassino

Frassino sits mid-valley in the Varaita, in Occitan country, where the village is called Fraisse: the name is that of the ash tree, and the municipal arms carry an uprooted ash on a field parted blue and silver. The valley floor narrows here, so the settlements climbed halfway up the slopes; the north side, the ubac, drops onto the village in sheer rock, while the sunlit adrech is gentler and was once wide pasture.

In January 1885 an avalanche came off Monte Ricordone and swept over three hamlets, killing more than seventy people; a cross marks the disaster not on the summit but at the point where the snow gave way. The site was inhabited in Roman times and long followed the fortunes of the marquisate of Saluzzo before passing to Savoy. Its men have worked as masons for centuries, skilled in stone roofing, and a museum of the trade is being set up.