Sale San Giovanni

Until 2 March 1948 Sale San Giovanni was not a comune: it was Bricco, a frazione of Sale delle Langhe, and the rivalry between the people of the Bricco and those of the Valle produced the decree that split in two a territory long known by one name. Two explanations circulate for the name Sale: the area's ancient inhabitants, the Salii or Salluvi, or an old word for a cave, a room, a village. The second half comes from the pieve of St John the Baptist, built around the year 1000.

The canting coat of arms repeats the story: the mountains are the local land, the church is that pieve, the three gold stars stand for the three marquisal families who held power here. The pieve was the parish seat until 1380, when the centre moved to the more defensible area called Villa; it is now the cemetery church, and behind the main altar a large painting of the thirteenth or fourteenth century has come to light. For a couple of decades the hills around have been planted with medicinal herbs: lavender, thyme, sage, chamomile, coriander, wild fennel.