Monte Viso or Monviso (; oc, Vísol;

Piedmontese Piedmontese (; autonym: or , in it, piemontese) is a language spoken by some 2,000,000 people mostly in Piedmont, northwestern region of Italy. Although considered by most linguists a separate language, in Italy it is often mistakenly reg ...

: ''Brich Monviso'' or ''Viso'') is the highest mountain of the

Cottian Alps The Cottian Alps (; french: Alpes Cottiennes ; it, Alpi Cozie ) are a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps. They form the border between France (Hautes-Alpes and Savoie) and Italy (Piedmont). The Fréjus Road Tunnel and Fréjus Ra ...

. It is located in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

close to the French border. Monte Viso is well known for its pyramid-like shape and, because it is higher than all its neighbouring peaks by about 500 m, it can be seen from a great distance, including from the Piedmontese plateau, the

Langhe The Langhe (; ''Langa'' is from old dialect Mons Langa et Bassa Langa) is a hilly area to the south and east of the river Tanaro in the province of Cuneo and in the province of Asti in Piedmont, northern Italy. It is famous for its wines, c ...

, the Theodulpass in the

Zermatt Zermatt () is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a year-round population of about 5,800 and is classified as a town by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO) ...

ski area, the col du Galibier and the summits of the

Mont Blanc massif The Mont Blanc massif (french: Massif du Mont-Blanc; it, Massiccio del Monte Bianco) is a mountain range in the Alps, located mostly in France and Italy, but also straddling Switzerland at its northeastern end. It contains eleven major indep ...

. On a very clear day it can be seen from the spires of

Milan Cathedral Milan Cathedral ( it, Duomo di Milano ; lmo, Domm de Milan ), or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary ( it, Basilica cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Nascente, links=no), is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombard ...

. It has been suggested that Monte Viso could be one of the mountains which inspired the Paramount logo. In Italy it is also known as ''Il Re di Pietra'' ("The Stone King") because of its prominence within the western Italian Alps. It was declared a cross-border

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

biosphere reserve in 2013. Il Monviso visto da Torino

It is also a mountain of the birth of the longest river of Italy,

River Po The Po ( , ; la, Padus or ; Ancient Ligurian: or ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is either or , if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. Th ...

Geography

On the northern slopes of Monte Viso are the

headwaters The headwaters of a river or stream is the farthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or downstream confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. It is also known as a river's source. Definition The ...

of the Po, the longest Italian river, the so-called Pian del Re (2,020 m). The Monviso group is surrounded by the

Valle Po The Valle Po (literally "Po valley") is a valley of the Cottian Alps in the province of Cuneo, Piedmont, northern Italy. Geography The valley gives rise to the longest river in Italy, the Po, before it enters the Pianura Padana (or Plain ...

, Valle Varaita and, on the French side, the

Guil The Guil (french: le Guil) is a long river in the Hautes-Alpes ''département'', southeastern France. Its drainage basin is .

valley. The northern sector of the group, from the Punta Gastaldi to the

Col de la Traversette The Col de la Traversette (Italian: Colle delle Traversette) is a bridle pass with an altitude of 2,947 m in the Cottian Alps. Located between Crissolo and Abriès, it lies on the border between Italy and France and separates the Monviso (3,841 m) ...

, is located on the French border. Monviso seen from Saluzzo 11-12-2021

SOIUSA classification

According to the

SOIUSA Alps by SOIUSA. SOIUSA (an acronym for - English: ''International Standardized Mountain Subdivision of the Alps-ISMSA'') is a proposal for a new classification system of the Alps from the geographic and toponomastic point of view. It was desig ...

(''International Standardized Mountain Subdivision of the Alps'') the mountain can be classified in the following way: * main part =

Western Alps The Western Alps are the western part of the Alpine Range including the southeastern part of France (e.g. Savoie), the whole of Monaco, the northwestern part of Italy (i.e. Piedmont and the Aosta Valley) and the southwestern part of Switzerland ( ...

* major sector = South Western Alps * section =

* subsection = southern Cottian Alps * supergroup = catena Aiguillette-Monviso-Granero * group = gruppo del Monviso isa * subgroup = nodo del Monviso *

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

= I/A-4.I-C.8.a Monviso - panoramica cresta da Ostanetta

History

Monte Viso is the location of a

neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

jadeite Jadeite is a pyroxene mineral with composition Na Al Si2 O6. It is hard (Mohs hardness of about 6.5 to 7.0), very tough, and dense, with a specific gravity of about 3.4. It is found in a wide range of colors, but is most often found in shades ...

quarry, at an elevation of 2000 to 2400 metres. Its productivity peaked around 5000 BC. The jadeite was used to make cult

axe An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...

s, which are found all over western Europe. One such ceremonial axe head was found as far away as a small hill called Tristia in Western

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

and is on display in the

National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology ( ga, Ard-Mhúsaem na hÉireann – Seandálaíocht, often known as the "NMI") is a branch of the National Museum of Ireland located on Kildare Street in Dublin, Ireland, that specialises in Irish an ...

, Dublin. In ancient times the mountain was known as Vesulus.Lewis C. T. and Short C., 1879, ''Latin Dictionary'', p 1982, citing Virgil ''Aen''. X 708 and Pliny 3. 16. 20 §117. Monte Viso was climbed for the first time on August 30, 1861 by William Mathews, Frederick Jacomb, Jean-Baptiste Croz and

Michel Croz Michel Auguste Croz (22 April 1830 in Le Tour, Chamonix valley – 14 July 1865, on the Matterhorn) was a French mountain guide and the first ascentionist of many mountains in the western Alps during the golden age of alpinism. He is chiefly reme ...

. The first woman to summit the mountain was Alessandra Boarelli (1838 – 1908) on 16 August 1864.

Monte Viso in literature

Monte Viso is mentioned by various authors, Italian and non-, including

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ' ...

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

, and

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

. Dante mentions the mountain in a long

simile A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors c ...

in Canto XVI of the Inferno as the source of the

Montone River The Montone is a river in the historical region of Romagna, which is in the present-day region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. It is the northernmost river on the east-facing slopes of the Apennines to flow directly into the Adriatic Sea rat ...

cites the mountain in the prologue to the Clerk's Tale in his

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's '' magnum opu ...

, in a passage adapted from Petrarch's

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

version of his "Tale of Griselda":

(Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Clerk's Tale," from ''The Canterbury Tales'')

References

Bibliography

External links

Monte Viso on SummitPost
{{DEFAULTSORT:Viso Alpine three-thousanders Populated places established in the 5th millennium BC Mountains of Piedmont Mountains of the Alps Archaeological sites in Italy Province of Cuneo Neolithic Biosphere reserves of France Biosphere reserves of Italy Three-thousanders of Italy