Pollenzo

A strategic Roman city remembered for the famous battle of 402 AD against the Visigoths, Pollenzo became an important Benedictine centre in the Middle Ages.

Disputed by the major municipalities of lower Piedmont between the 12th and 13th centuries, Pollenzo came to be the county seat of the Visconti patrician Antonio Porro in the 14th century.

In the 14th century, its fortress was transformed into a prestigious feudal residence of the Marquises of Romagnano who, in the second half of the 16th century, renovated the castle on Mannerist models. What we can now admire, on the other hand, is due to the last 19th-century renovations.

King Carlo Alberto actually carried out interventions that entailed the destruction of a large part of the medieval-era village in order to exalt a sort of 'Recreated Middle Ages' fused with classical elements, typical of the new Romantic thought.

A host of other highly professional artists were engaged in the reconstruction of the entire village to create the medieval image so dear to the sovereign: his square with its Gothic fountain and the church of San Vittore, the Albertina farmstead, the castle and, basically, the Agency.

Famous for the production of Barolo wine, in 1997 Pollenzo was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list thanks to the presence of one of the Savoy residences.