A fascinating tour among castle, churches and rural landscape marked by sundials
In 1999 the Municipalities of Montiglio, Colcavagno and Scandeluzza, with a local referendum decided to join in a single Municipality : Montiglio Monferrato. As a result each of these centers brings cultural treasures of outstanding historical, architectural and cultural value. In fact, the entire territory of the three municipalities was a disputed ground between the Marquisate of Monferrato and the city of Asti, a free municipality since the Middle Ages (11th century).
Description: the visit to Montiglio Monferrato can be described as "articulated" as it involves three areas: Montiglio, Scandeluzza e Rinco.
Montiglio has a very important historic center with a castle (built in the 9th century with subsequent renovations) where, with a little luck, we could visit the beautiful Chapel of S. Andrea and its fourteenth-century frescoes telling the life and passion of Jesus. Walking through Montiglio we will admire the several sundials. They have been mostly made by Mario Tebenghi, a well-known local gnomonist, but there are some ancient ones too.
We will then see the cemetery church of San Lorenzo. A Romanesque church (12th century) that, although the original structure has been modified, in the architectural and sculptural elements it retains all the charm of the foundation period: the two-tone walls, the capitals and single-lancet windows decorated with zoomorphic figures of Celtic and pagan symbolism. It is still possible to appreciate the original structure with a Latin three-apse plan even though now it seems like a single nave church.
Moving on to Scandeluzza, whose etymology takes us back to the ancient cultivation of the hordeum distichum also called "scandella", we find another medieval church: the current cemetery church dedicated to SS. Sebastian and Fabian. This time the structure remained the original one and you can still appreciate the frescoes in the apse. The church was founded in 427 as parish church of Caxio, a small village abandoned in 1304 by order of the Marquises of Montiglio at the request of the Marquis of Monferrato.
For lovers of Guglielmo Caccia, named also “the Moncalvo”, the Piedmontese Raphael, we can push our visit to the churches of S. Maria del Rosario, also in Scandeluzza, and that of San Bartolomeo in Rinco, another a little hamlet of Montiglio Monferrato.
Duration: about 3/4 hours. For a more detailed visit we can also consider the whole day. Possibility of packed lunch or at the local restaurants
Dogs: not allowed, anyway ask info
Contribution to the association: to be defined
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