Saluzzo

Traveling in Piedmont, in Italy, you must stop and visit Saluzzo a magnificent and spectacular example of medieval architecture perfectly preserved during centuries.
The opportunities to take good pictures in Saluzzo are really many.
Saluzzo was for four centuries, an independent and proud marquisate; a territory with vocation for fruits, a fertile and generous soil.
The day I came across visiting Saluzzo regretfully was cold and foggy, not really ideal for the shots I had in mind, and the beautiful castle named “Castello della Manta” with its Renaissance frescoes was closed for restoration.

It is not sure, of course, but Saluzzo’s history appears to start in A.D. 1028 in an act which Saluzzo is mentioned as possession of the Marquis of Turin, Olderico Manfredi, family of the Arduino. However, archaeological finds from Roman times require a pre-existing settlement.
Saluzzo area is already known as marquisate at the end of 1100.
Since then, a dynasty of fourteen Marquis guided this little border state maintaining political relations with France and Mantua.
Thanks to these political ties with France Saluzzo even disputed the dominance of House of Savoy in Piedmont.

The Marquis of Saluzzo reached his fortune in the 15th century, along with economic prosperity guaranteed by a long period of peace, is the growing splendor of arts and letters.
Saluzzo took the shape of a typical village of renaissance with a main town distributed as a fan on the top of the hill, surrounded by a ring of walls preserved in part to this day.
The progressive loss of independence reduced the city ,from an active commercial, administrative and artistic center, to a peripheral rural village going through an irreversible decline.
Became vulnerable and weakened by internal strife between the descendants of the Marquis Ludovico II, Saluzzo saw the definitive end of the independence in 1548 with the deposition by French troops of the last Marquis Gabriele Ludovico and subsequent Saluzzo was annexed to France.
Towards the end of 1588, the Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy, has militarily occupied the Marquis, still subject to the French protection.
The war against the French was fought in Alta Val Susa and Val Chisone but the war did not last long and ends May 2, 1598.
Thanks to the Treaty of Lyons in 1601, Carlo Emanuele I get the dominion over the territory of Saluzzo domains gathered to the House of Savoy until the unification of Italy.

Posted on May 9, 2011

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