MEDIEVAL CASTLE FOR SALE IN MONFERRATO, PIEDMONT

The castle was originally built in the early Middle Ages and since 1164 the fortress, together with its hamlet, was the theater of violent fights between Asti and the nearby Marquisate of Monferrato. At the beginning of the 14th century the castle and the hamlet were entirely demolished and not rebuilt until the next century.

When rebuilding it was decided to go on with a simple defensive keep but over the years the building was expanded and ended up embedding a series of other buildings (still visible to an attentive eye) previously built by the local noblemen, whose family gathered up to form a consortile in the attempt of gaining a better political influence in the country.

In the 18th century the castle underwent a huge process of renovation and rebuilding which led to the realization of the elegant halls we can see nowadays.

The building has now an irregular L shape, but it is clear that this is only part of the original building which had a U shape to increase its defensibility. The second wing of the castle doesn’t exist anymore but its existence is confirmed by the conformation of the garden (slightly raised in this point) and the walls supporting the side of the hill. What’s more, many holes on the side of the hills allow entering several underground rooms which were once the basement of the demolished wing. 

The castle is nowadays mostly in good conditions, with restorations carried out to preserve and highlight the decorations. The halls are all frescoed and/or painted with floral motives recalling the grotesque found in Nero’s Domus Aurea. The basement has been partially restored leaving stone walls visible so to underline the medieval origin of the building.

Not far from the castle is located a beautiful church with frescoes dated to the mid-14th century. Apparently uninteresting when looked upon from outside, the church offers unique frescoes. With a rectangular shape, the building has only two small windows in the apsis while the arch on the right wall, now closed by a glass window, would point to an ancient linking between the church and the castle, no longer existing. The entrance door is probably an after-thought which however irreparably damaged the frescoes inside the church.

The paintings represent the whole life of Jesus, starting with the Annunciation and ending with the Noli me tangere featuring Mary Magdalene. The conditions of the frescoes are however pretty bad because of a layer of plaster which was put over the paintings during the 17th-century plague epidemics which struck Piedmont (the same epidemics found in Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi): the surfaces were scraped and hammered to favor plaster sticking, severely damaging the paintings underneath. The images have only resurfaced in the 1930s.

The castle is embellished by a well-maintained 18,405-m² Italian garden located where once stood the other wing of the castle, now demolished. The garden hosts a small hedge maze in whose center are located three shrines housing as many statues: the Virgin with the baby on the left, the Christ Savior at the center and a Pope on the right.

The entire property crossed underground by galleries and tunnels which were in the past used as wells and cisterns to supply water to the inhabitants of the castle.

Closest services (300m; 2’), Asti (26km; 30’), Casale Monferrato (38km; 40’), Alba (57km; 50’), Alessandria (60km; 50’), Turin (61km; 1h 5’), Ivrea (62km; 1h 5’), Barolo (69km; 55’), Acqui Terme (69km; 1h 10’), Pavia (132km; 1h 35’), Genoa (142km; 1h 45’), Milan (145km; 1h 50’)

Torino S. Pertini (62km; 50’), Genova C. Colombo (132km; 1h 30’), Milano Malpensa (138km; 1h 30’), Milano Linate (158km; 1h 45’), Bergamo M. Caravaggio (186km; 2h), Bologna G. Marconi (296km; 3h)