Cafasse (408 m) is situated on the mount Basso and mount Corno slopes. The Torino-Lanzo county road crosses its territory and it is an obligated passage for people coming from Venaria and wanting to enter the Lanzo Valleys. The village is split in two areas: a flat one, spreading along the old Lanzo road, including the administrative center and another, mainly on the plateau, including the Monasterolo hamlet.
The name etymology could be the Latin word “cafaxie”, meaning a scattered group of houses built on territories gained to the Stura. Cafasse history is almost unknown up to the eleventh century. The Corrado II Salico’s (1026) and Arrigo III’s (1046) imperial certificates are the first documents in which the village is mentioned.
The first settlers probably arrived in those years, during the Mathi Benedictines’ ruling. Up to 1742, year in which Cafasse became an independent municipality, its history intertwined with Mathi’s and Balangero’s. Monasterolo had a different history. The oldest document in which it is mentioned is by the bishop Majnardi. He includes the Santa Maria church of Monasterolo as one of the Turin San Solutore Abbey properties. Frederick II, successor to Frederick I (Babarossa), granted Monasterolo as feud to the Baratonia Viscounts. In the XIVth century the feud passed on the Acaja Princes and, in the XVth century, to the Arcourt family. In the XVIth, Monasterolo became an independent municipality until 1928, year in which it was joined to Cafasse.
