Usseglio closes the Viù valley, southernmost of the three Lanzo valleys, and to the west it already borders France. The Celtic name was probably Uxeilos, "the high place", the Latin one Hoc Caelum. Two Roman votive altars survive: one to Hercules, carved with the name of Marcus Vibius Marcellus, was built into the front of the old parish church; the other, to Jupiter, names Claudius Castus and came to light in 1850. Both are now in the Museo Civico Alpino Arnaldo Tazzetti.
The old church is Romanesque, reworked in the first half of the seventeenth century, when the present east-facing front took the place of the old apse. The bell tower is Romanesque too, of the eleventh or twelfth century, and only its two lower storeys remain. Count Luigi Cibrario, senator of the Kingdom and historian of the House of Savoy, came from here and wrote his village's first history; higher up, a dam built between the wars drowned the old hamlet of Malciaussia and left its name to the lake.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Usseglio
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
