Perlo

Perlo lies in a side valley of the upper Tanaro valley, cut by the rio Perletta, and is entirely mountain ground. Medieval documents give the name as Perlus and Perlum, traced back to the Latin pirolus, the wild pear, most likely from the abundance of that fruit tree here; the municipal arms, though, ignore the pear: they are purple with a silver pearl. That the area was already frequented in Roman times is suggested by caves and tunnels cut in the rock and by finds of coins and statuettes.

The castle was built in the thirteenth century by Giorgio II, known as Nano, marquis of Ceva: a fortress with a perimeter of five hundred metres and four corner towers, set high enough to signal to those of Nucetto and Battifollo. It was destroyed under Napoleonic rule, and from that campaign the local name Bric dei morti, the hill of the dead, has stuck. In 1928 Perlo was merged into Nucetto; it became a comune again in 1947.