Boccioleto stands in the lower Val Sermenza, at the mouth of the Val Cavaione, where the Cavaione joins the Sermenza. Above it rises the torre della Giavine, a gneiss monolith some 90 metres high, which the comune bears in its arms as a silver rocky mountain on blue. An older coat of arms showed a torrent descending from mountains, with the motto fiat lux, alluding to the likely origin of the name: a place of stones, boci, and brambles, buloci.
The houses with loggias and roofs of stone slabs, piode, go back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and recall the noble families who lived there, among them that of Giacomo Preti, known as il Giacomaccio, who led the revolts against the domination of the Varallo notables. In 1835 the comune absorbed Fervento, until then independent. At the alpe Seccio, on the outer wall of the oratory of San Lorenzo, a Saint Christopher and a Wheel of Fortune, a secular allegory of changing luck, are still visible.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Boccioleto
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Boccioleto, but an easy day trip away.