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This reserve is adjacent to the town of Lanzo, where the Tesso and Stura streams meet, in the very area of the Municipal Park. Established in 1378, it has a single Gothic arch: 213-ft long, 7.44-ft wide and 49-ft high, with a humpback range of about 121 ft.

Popular imagination created legends around the daring construction of this arch: it was, in fact, credited to the devil himself (hence the name of the arch: “Ponte del Diavolo” – “Devil’s Bridge”). There are those who can still see, at the head of the bridge near the chapel of S. Rocco, the footprint left by the hoof of the devil, who would have crossed it with one big step, after building it.

However, the bridge had great importance in the history of Lanzo and the Valleys. On 15 July 1564, due to the great threat of the plague, the Council of Credenza della Castellania built a door on the top of the arch to close the Ròc bridge.

Equally noteworthy are the chapels of Saint Rocco and Saint Giacinto, as well as the geological formations called “giant pots”, located immediately upstream.

The vegetation

Remarkable woodland formations are the most striking feature of the landscape.
The rocky slopes on the two sides of the “Devil’s Bridge” are now covered with mosses and pioneering rock plants, including ivy, wall-rue fern (Asplenium ruta-muraria), maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes), common polypody (Polypodium vulgare), cinquefoils, and bluebells.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)