Comune Prasco

via Roma, 2 - 15010 Prasco (AL)
Tel. +39 (0144) 375.703
Fax: +39 (0144) 375.703
E-mail: info@comune.prasco.al.it
http://www.comune.prasco.al.it

Prasco is a town divided into two hamlets, Prasco Stazione and Prasco Centro, which developed on the hill.

The first mention of Prasco dates back to the 10th century, when the Marquises of Occimiano donated it to the Alexandrians. In the 13th century, the Cistercian nuns of Satronorio founded a small monastery and hospice. Over the centuries, the town passed under the rule of various noble families, including the Malaspina, De Regibus, Spinola, and Piuma families, who still own the castle, bearing the surname Gallesio-Piuma, an excellent example of a fortified house.
The town has numerous churches worth visiting, including the ancient 16th-century castle, the Oratory of San Giovanni Battista, and the Romanesque parish church of Saints Nazario and Celso.

The first historical records of Prasco appear to date back to the 10th century AD. However, scholars of Monferrato toponymy disagree on the exact name by which this town was originally identified. In chronological order, the variants considered are as follows:
1. Pradascum and Pradasco. Attested in documents from 991, namely in the Charter of Foundation and Donation of the Abbey of San Quintino, as well as in the brief of Pope Adrian VI of 1155. From the Latin pratascum, originating from the word pratum or dialectal pradum, erre suggests a place of meadows or prairies, that is, prairies.
2. Predasco, as per a 10th-century charter and as recorded in the deed by which the Marquises of Occimiano donated the fiefdom of Prasco to the Alessandrini in 1198, and in a document by which William II of Monferrato invested the Cistercian nuns of Latronorio with the Church of Santa Maria “De Praedalibus” in 1249. In the documents (manuscripts and period prints) preserved in the Gallesio-Piuma archive, the recurring term is Predascho.
3. Petrascum, as recorded in the will of the Archpriest of Prasco, Don Bartolomeo Remuschio (1694). The Royal Patent with which Vittorio Amedeo granted the enfeoffment to Ferdinando Piuma also states "in the place of Prasco or Pedrasco." Attilio Zuccagni-Orlandini writes in his Topographic Dictionary of Municipalities: Prasco, once a fortified place, was anciently called Pedrasco and is mentioned on a 10th-century map. Medieval maps feature the terrine Pedrascum, traced to Perascum for Petrascum (from petrus) as a reference to the rocky nature of the terrain on which the town stands.
Further information is available on the Municipality website: https://www.comune.prasco.al.it/Guidaalpaese?IDPagina=43712&IDCat=6822
(image from the Municipality website)