Mont Ventoux (1912 m) is an insulated calcareous massif extending over about 25 kilometres: for this reason it is also renowned as ‘the Giant of Provence’. Its Occitan name is Mont Ventor, deriving from a pre-Latin root –vin (rise), widespread in the south of France, Piedmont and Corsica, together with the suffix –tur (distance). It indicates a mountain which is visible from a distance. The meaning of this ancient toponym had then been misunderstood, and from the X century the mountain was known as Mons Ventosus (windy mountain) also because the mistral sometimes blows on it at a speed between 100 and 200 kilometres an hour. This was also the name used by Petrarch, the first to climb the peak, thus being, thanks to this ascension, the forerunner of mountaineering. Mont Ventoux is a biosphere reserve of UNESCO and a site of importance for the community (SIC).