In 1849 ...

In 1849, don Agostino Provenzale, brother of our great-great grandfather and parish priest of nearby Lausetto, fell under enemy fire next to his horse during the battle of Novara, one of the many of the Italian war of independence of the 19th century. Resourceful man that he was, he hid under the belly of his horse and thus escaped capture and death.
Back at his parish and thankful of his fate, he decided to place a cross at the top of the famous cone-shaped rock above Chiappera, which he had been the first to climb. In 1850, with the help of his parishioners, friends and relatives, he actually managed to achieve his painstaking objective by transporting the pieces on top of the rock through ropes and pulleys, assembling them into a cross and raising it to its dominating position over the valley. It was then that the undisputed “queen” known today as the Rocca Provenzale was baptized Croce Provenzale.