Page 3 - Guida di Lanzo

dell’opera, Amedeo VI, il Conte Verde, s’interessò personalmente
del progetto, partecipando anche alla spesa. Il ponte, alto circa
16 metri e con una gittata a schiena d’asino di 37 metri, costituiva
un passaggio obbligato per chiunque volesse raggiungere la pia-
nura dalle valli e viceversa, e questo almeno fino al 1820, quando
venne terminata la carrozzabile Torino-Ciriè.

Ponte del diavolo. Cartolina.

Introduction The city of Lanzo Torinese (m 525 above sea level) is 31 Km from Turin. Commercial and

industrial centre and holiday resort situated at the beginning of the three homonymous valleys,
it has a population of more than 5,000 inhabitants.
Lanzo, known as ‘Lans’ in Piedmontese and Franco-provencal dialect, has been known since the
Middle Ages as the seat of textile and mechanical industries and as a summer holiday resort. It
is now, one of the best renowned centres of the homonymous valleys, popular among those keen
on winter sports and excursions activities.
Lanzo is the set-off location for visiting its valleys: Val Grande, Valle di Viù, Val d’Ala and the Valle
del Tesso. In these valleys one can admire the picturesque villages, hamlets, summer pastures,
linked by old mule tracks and also by paths that testify the territorial dislocation on which was
founded the communicative and productive organization that took place in these mountains for
many centuries. The high peaks of the Alpi Graie and the refuges: Daviso, Gastaldi, Cibrario, Taz-
zetti and Salvin allow climbers to venture in demanding up-hill tracks.
Winter sports can be practised thanks to sky-lifts, cross-country rings and ice-skating rinks in Us-
seglio, in the Valle di Viù, Ala and Balme, in the Val d’Ala, in Chialamberto and in the Val Grande.
It is also possible to give new strength to the spirit and the body in the tourist facilities of these
villages.
The streams Tesso, Uppia and Stura flow through Lanzo. Above the Stura stream rises the most
famous architectonic construction of the town: the ‘Ponte del Diavolo’ (the Devil’s bridge). The
legend tells that this medieval bridge was built by the devil itself in one night only, as its fearless
carrying out was almost inconceivable at that time, but most likely its name seems to refer to the
exclamation ‘Al diavolo il ponte!’ (the hell to the bridge), spoken by the inhabitants of the valley
annoyed by the increase of the duty on the wine, necessary to face the building expenses.
Also called ‘Ponte dël Roc’, it connects the slopes of Mount Basso with those of Mount Buriasco,
and it is part of the homonymous regional protected area, ‘Parco della Mandria’. Its structure
dates back to 1378, when the ‘Credenza di Lanzo’ ordered the construction of a bridge that could
connect the hamlet on the right bank of the river Stura. Considering the strategic importance of
the work of art, Amedeo VII, the ‘Conte Verde’, was personally involved in the project, and also
participated in the buliding costs. The bridge, about m 16 high and with a m 37 hump-back
casting, represented an obligatory transit for whoever wanted to reach the plain from the valleys
and back, and this carried on until at least 1820 when the works for the carriage way Torino-Ciriè
ended.