The town is situated at the foot of the Cottian Alps, near Monviso and more precisely, in a basin at the foot of Mount Bracco and Mount Medìa. The inhabited centre is crossed by two streams, which join to form a third one, the Ghiandone, which joins the river Po near Staffarda. Barge lies about 360-390 metres above sea level.
Name
The name Barge is thought to derive from the ancient word barga, whose meaning is a source of discussion. According to version, it means "shelter" or "hut". According to others, instead, it is to be linked to the ancient root *berg-/*barg-/*breg-/*brig- with the meaning of "elevated ground/mountain". In the south of France, localities with names such as Barge/La Barge/Barges/Bargettes lie at the foot of a mountain. The same applies to the Spanish toponym Vargas. The name of the Tuscan town of Barga may derive from the same root.
History
Rock engravings at the top of Mount Bracco and Mount Medìa attest to the area having been populated in ancient times, but little is known about their creators. Barge is situated in a area which, in the pre-Roman age, belonged to the Celtic-Ligurian culture of the Taurini. It later fell within the sphere of influence of the main settlement on the Rocca di Cavour, a huge isolated mass of granite rising from the nearby town of Cavour. This settlement is mentioned by Pliny as the second most important in the Taurine lands, after Segusia. At the foot of the rocca the proconsulGaius Vibius Pansa founded a Roman market settlement called Forum Vibii Cabur. The first document mentioning the name of Barge dates back to 1001, an imperial diploma of Otto III. However, the large First Romanesquebell tower of the church of San Giovanni Battista demonstrates that the village was a centre of some importance already in the first quarter of the 11th century. Barge was part of Turin's lands. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, it was under the rule of a lordly consortium, called "Dei Signori di Barge", who swore allegiance at the same time to both the House of Savoy and the Marquises of Saluzzo. In 1363, Barge was plundered and pillaged, and passed definitively into Savoy hands. From the middle of the 16th century, the area suffered from frequent wars, with Spanish, French and Piedmontese armies passing through, aiming to control the important castle, and leaving destruction and misery in their wake, culminating with an epidemic of the plague in 1630, which left the region depopulated. In that year Charles Emmanuel I incorporated the town into the province of Saluzzo, detaching it from that of Pinerolo. At the end of the 18th century the town was involved in the war between Piedmont and France: in 1690, the French marshalCatinat, after his victory at the Battle of Staffarda, moved against Barge, devastating the territory and plundering the town. A relative period of peace in the eighteenth century helped to heal the wounds of the past decades. Barge was a centre for the production of firearms from the 14th century until the 18th century, an industry started by the Thorosano family. Another local industry was the quartzite mine of Mombracco, mentioned by Leonardo da Vinci. In September 1943, the first partisan formation in Northern Italy was founded in Barge.
