One of the most important samples in the Spada Collection, which entered the Museum of Mineralogy in 1852, is represented by this garnet from Testa Ciarva, Mussa, Val d'Ala Lanzo, Turin, Piedmont, Italy. Garnets are a family of minerals that are very widespread on a planetary scale and are found in a very wide range of colors and qualities; However, there are some extraction places where garnets take on particular and unique connotations, if we associate this with the fact that some deposits have become unproductive or restricted by excavation prohibitions, here some samples, extracted many decades ago can take on a particular value scientific, historical and aesthetic. This is the case of the Val d'Ala garnets, with transparency and luster to make them of gem quality, in association with diopside crystals. In particular, the locality “Testa Ciarva” (“Calva” in the local dialect), has become famous both for the quality and quantity of the samples supplied over the years. This field was certainly the most exploited in the valley, even with the abundant use of explosives. Today, due to this, the area has been totally closed to the search and collection of minerals. This adds greater value to the specimens present in the mineralogical collections. The minerals that have made the place famous the most are garnet and diopside, both present in the sample inherited from the Spada Collection: the garnet crystals are of extraordinary elegance, of an intense red-hyacinth-deep color, with a habit usually given from the combination of the icositetrahedron and the rhombododecahedron; the diopside crystals are gray-green in color and characterize this particular and exclusive association of this locality. The garnets of Val d'Ala, thanks to their rarity, their history and their beauty, are absolutely among the most famous and admired mineralogical specimens on a world scale.