page_title: Monte Viso
section_title: Monte Viso in literature
hierarchical_section_title: Monte Viso / Monte Viso in literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Sunset view of Monviso from San Giorgio della Lessinia (VR), over 300km away.
context_page_description: Monte Viso or Monviso, is the highest mountain of the Cottian Alps. It is located in Italy close to the French border. Monte Viso is well known for its pyramid-like shape and, because it is higher than all its neighbouring peaks by about 500 m, it can be seen from a great distance, including from the Piedmontese plateau, the Langhe, the Theodulpass in the Zermatt ski area and the summits of the Mont Blanc massif. On a very clear day it can be seen from the spires of Milan Cathedral.
  It has been suggested that Monte Viso could be one of the mountains which inspired the Paramount logo.
  In Italy it is also known as Il Re di Pietra because of its prominence within the western Italian Alps landscape. From 29 May 2013, it has become UNESCO's heritage as a cross-border biosphere reserve with France.
context_section_description: Monte Viso is mentioned by various authors, Italian and non-, including Dante, Petrarch, and Chaucer.  Dante mentions the mountain in a long simile in Canto XVI of the Inferno as the source of the Montone River:
  Come quel fiume c'ha proprio cammino
  	
  prima dal Monte Viso 'nver' levante,
  	
  da la sinistra costa d'Apennino
  Chaucer cites the mountain in the prologue to the Clerk's Tale in his Canterbury Tales, in a passage adapted from Petrarch's Latin version of his "Tale of Griselda":
  A prohemie, in which discryveth he,
  Pemond, and of Saluces the contree,
  And speketh of Appenyn, the hilles hye,
  That been the boundes of West Lumbardye,
  And of Mount Vesulus in special,
  Wher as the Poo out of a welle smal,
  Taketh his first spryngyng and his cours
  That eastward ay encresseth in his cours
  To Emele-ward, to Ferare and Venyse;
  The which a long thyng were to devyse. 
  (Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Clerk's Tale," from The Canterbury Tales)
caption: Sunset view of Monviso from San Giorgio della Lessinia (VR), over 300km away.
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