Pierre-Louis Vescoz
Parish priest, naturalist and maker of relief models of the Valley
Pierre-Louis Vescoz was born in Verrayes in 1840. He became a priest, but he is remembered as a naturalist and cartographer. He left a large relief model of the Aosta Valley and an arboretum above his native village.
Curate, then parish priest
Vescoz was ordained in 1866. He was first a curate in Cogne, then in Courmayeur. He later became parish priest of Pont-Saint-Martin.
Teacher at the seminary
From 1895 he taught natural sciences at the Aosta seminary. With other priests, he helped found the Petite Société alpine de Cogne. This joint work produced a book, the Géographie du pays d’Aoste.
In the learned societies
Vescoz was a member of the Académie Saint-Anselme and of several other learned societies. He played an important part in reviving the Société de la Flore valdôtaine in 1884. The Society had existed since 1858. In 1905 it appointed him “librarian and curator” of its museum.
Mountains in relief
His speciality was “plastiques”: relief models showing the mountains in three dimensions. The most important shows the whole Aosta Valley at a scale of 1:40,000. It won him a gold medal at the Vatican exhibition of 1888. It can reportedly still be seen at Aosta town hall.
The Verrayes arboretum
At the beginning of the 20th century, Vescoz planted an arboretum on the heights above Verrayes. The site was recently restored and is open to the public. Today visitors can walk among the trees he planted.
A long life
Pierre-Louis Vescoz died in 1925, aged 85. Priest, teacher, naturalist and cartographer, he typifies those 19th-century clergymen of the Aosta Valley who studied their region with the tools of science.
