Campiglia Cervo: the sanctuary valley of the Biella Alps
The upper Cervo valley, known to its people as the Bursch, is a world of stone: stone houses, stone bridges and generations of stonemasons who left to build forts and monuments across Europe. At its heart, gathered from many hamlets, lies the little municipality of Campiglia Cervo, in the mountains of the Biella Alps north of Turin.
San Giovanni d'Andorno
High above the village, at over a thousand metres, stands the sanctuary of San Giovanni d'Andorno, said to be the only sanctuary in Italy dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. Documented from 1512, it grew around a cave where a wooden statue of the saint is still venerated, enclosed in the church built from the early 1600s and enlarged in the 18th century to designs linked to Bernardo Vittone, with frescoes by the Galliari brothers and a giant bell, the Campanun, famous through the Biellese. A path of devotional chapels dedicated to the hermit saints climbs to it through the woods, a small sacro monte.
The stone valley
The parish villages of the commune, which absorbed Quittengo and San Paolo Cervo in 2016, keep fine churches and tall stone houses, and the valley road continues up to the walkers' village of Piedicavallo, with trails over the ridges towards Oropa and the high Alps.
Where it lies
Campiglia Cervo is a short drive up the valley from Biella and about seventy kilometres north-east of Turin.