Prali

Prali lies in the upper Germanasca valley and is made of tiny hamlets: Ghigo, Villa and Malzat stand in a flat basin, the rest scattered into the side valleys. Until 1937 the comune was called Praly, when the fascist regime italianised the name. Waldensians are documented here from the start: in 1533 they held a synod to confirm their adherence to the Reformation, and in 1556 they built a temple at Ghigo for all the Waldensians of the upper valley. After the inhabitants surrendered to the French it became a Catholic church; it now houses a museum on the history of the valley.

In 1870 Prali absorbed the neighbouring comune of Rodoretto, and later gave up two hamlets to Salza and Perrero. Talc and white marble long sustained it, and part of the disused talc mines can be visited. Above Ghigo, after the war, the Waldensian pastor Tullio Vinay and the architect Leonardo Ricci built the village of Agape, raised by volunteer labour from hundreds of young people and support from the evangelical churches of Europe. The arms set an ox grazing among three larches.