Avigliana, Metropolitan city of Turin, Piedmont, Italy
Avigliana is an Italian town of 12 623 inhabitants in the metropolitan city of Turin in Piedmont, and is located about twenty kilometers west of the Piedmontese capital. The municipality is located in a morainic amphitheater between Mount Pirchiriano, on which the Sacra di San Michele stands, and the hill of Rivoli, in the terminal part of the Val di Susatowards the plain in a multiple and complex territory known as the Morainic Amphitheater of Rivoli-Avigliana. It is the most populated and economically important municipality in the entire Val di Susa.
The city is located at 383 m asl in the Val di Susa. The town is crossed by the Dora Riparia river, a tributary of the Po, and has the Great Lake and the Small Lake which are part of the Natural Park of the Avigliana Lakes. The city is an authentic medieval jewel set around the Alps next to the Sacra di San Michele and in front of Mount Musinè.
Legend has it that Avigliana in very distant times rose where the two lakes are now and that it was a rich and flourishing village. Its inhabitants, however, were famous for their wickedness, little inclined to respect their fellow men and above all heedless of their duties towards the Creator. A little place where everything was lawful and the poor were driven out mercilessly. So the Lord wanted to test them and presented himself in the guise of a beggar. He knocked on every door and begged for some refreshment. He was rejected and mistreated confirming the wickedness and selfishness that harbored in those souls. Only a poor old woman, who lived in a poor cottage and lived in hardship, welcomed him and fed him with the last piece of bread he had in the pantry.
It was on that night that tragically the fate of those miserable egoists, condemned by their wickedness, was fulfilled. Between lightning, thunder and terrifying seismic shocks two frightening chasms opened in the ground, the town was drowned by the waters. In the light of dawn the town no longer existed and in its place two large and deep lakes had formed, very beautiful, divided by a small strip of land on which remained the poor house of the merciful old woman who was the only survivor of the divine punishment. Hence the saying: “Vian-a vilan-a for his goodness is perfondù”.
History
Prehistory and Ancient Age
The first evidence of human presence in the area dates back to the Neolithic period, a period to which traces of a pile-dwelling center found at the end of the nineteenth century in the marshes near the lakes belong. All ‘ Stone Age and the Bronze period of several axes and several cups used by druids Celtic for sacrificial ceremonies.
The formation of an inhabited center by Belloveso, a Celtic leader, dates back to 595 BC. In Roman times the town was on the border with the between the ager taurinensis and the kingdom of the Cozii di Cozio so it was the right place to collect the quadragesima galliarum, the duty on goods coming from Gaul. Also in the Roman period (312) Avigliana witnessed the passage of the legions of Constantine I from Gaul and the clash with those of Maxentius in the plain ofRivoli.
The Middle Ages
The first fortification works on Mount Pezzulano date back to 574, on which the castle built by Clefi, king of the Lombards still stands. According to some sources, the clash of 750 between the troops of Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, and Astolfo, king of the Lombards, took place near the city.
In the following years, the history of Avigliana strictly depends on the events of the Novalesa Abbey founded by Benedictine monks who built a hospital in the town for pilgrims from France after crossing the Alps. The arrival of the Saracens leads to the destruction of numerous Benedictine works during their raids which began in the eighth century. The raids continued until the middle of the 10th century when, reached its peak with the capture of the abbot of Cluny at the Great St Bernard Pass, Arduino il Glabrionereceives the task of removing the Saracens. Once the enemies have been defeated, the reconstruction of the Val di Susa and the castle of Avigliana must be faced.
The figure of the Marquise Adelaide, wife of Oddone, Count of Moriana and founder of the Savoy family, is of considerable importance for the town. She was responsible for the construction in the mid- 11th century of the so-called Borgo Nuovo, created to unite the castle with the pre-existing Borgo Vecchio located further down. In 1136 the Blessed Umberto was born, while in 1139 the castle can count among its guests Amedeo III of Savoy who contributed to its fortification. The city of Avigliana does not become a fief as it is considered the direct property of the counts.
In 1187 Henry VI besieged Avigliana and conquered it, causing serious damage to both the castle and the city, but after a short time both Federico Barbarossa, father of Henry VI, and Umberto III, contenders for the throne, died. Tommaso I, successor of Umberto III, takes advantage of the new policy of Henry VI to reconcile with the empire and obtain his rights on Avigliana and then rebuild the castle.
Avigliana in 1350 was declared a free square by Amedeo VI called the Conte Verde who also carried out fortification works on the castle and its walls, in 1360 it was born from Amedeo VI and Bona di Borbone Amedeo VII called the Conte Rosso who will retrace his father’s footsteps becoming one of the main personalities of the House of Savoy.
The castle became the prison of Philip II of Savoy-Achaia on 4 October 1367 by order of Amedeo VI following accusations of treason. Shortly thereafter, the death sentence arrives unanimously and is carried out on the following November 21, causing him to drown in the cold winter waters of the adjacent lakes. A legend tells that the spirit of Philip II still wanders on the waters of the lakes.
Renaissance and Modern Age
In 1462 Antoine de Lonhy, a painter of the Burgundian school, was resident in Avigliana after having been active in Toulouse and Catalonia. Lohny is the author of numerous works in Novalesa and in the Duchy of Savoy led by Amedeo IX.
Another siege afflicted the castle in 1536, by the French marshal Montmorency and its walls could not resist the cannon fire. The entire garrison made up of 500 infantry is killed while its commander tries to negotiate the surrender; he himself will be hanged shortly thereafter.
Another attack by the French on August 17, 1630 which is opposed by a garrison of 500 men commanded by Colonel Emanuelli; however, the city has already been brought to its knees by the plague and the Piedmontese army is engaged in the defense of Turin and Savigliano and surrender arrives on 27 August.
In 1659, after having always been considered a direct dependence of the counts, Avigliana became a fiefdom assigned to Carlo Emanuele Provana di Beinette, meanwhile the war against the French continued with some brief truce and on 28 May 1690 the general Catinat bombards the castle, leaving what is still visible today.
In 1702 the feud changes its assignee passing into the hands of the Carron di San Tommaso and raids and destruction continue: the work of the French, who are preparing for the siege of Turin, in 1706, and of the troops of Prince Eugene in pursuit of the fleeing French, September 19, 1707.
Other important visits are: on 25 October 1773 that of Queen Maria Teresa of Savoy, on her way to France to marry the Count d’Artois, future Charles X, and in 1859 that of the troops sent by Napoleon III to help the Piedmontese against the ‘ Austria.
Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, built one of the largest dynamite production plants in Italy here in Avigliana.
Economy
Avigliana has had a central position in the local economy since ancient times. It is no coincidence that it is said (paretymologically) that the name itself, Avigliana, derives from a Piedmontese term that means bee (hence the coat of arms which, albeit modified over the centuries, has always maintained the symbolism of the small insect) to indicate the industriousness of its inhabitants.
In Roman times its position on the Via delle Gallie favored it in trade and this commercial vocation continued with alternating phases over the centuries with the contributions made by agriculture and fishing in the waters of the lakes.
The nineteenth century saw the rise of the industry when in 1872 the Nobel dynamite factory was built (the largest European plant for these productions in the 1940s) which between various accidents and the bombings of the Second World War continued the production of explosives and gunpowder until the sixties. After the end of the war the factory was partially converted into the production of paints.
Currently in the territory there are some industrial activities in particular in the field of production of boats for pleasure boating. Another important element of the economy is the tourism attracted to the medieval village and the presence of the lake basins used as a destination for trips out of town.
Tourism
The visit of the city of Avigliana, for those arriving by car, can start from three strategic points: Piazzale Don Germena, Piazza del Popolo, Piazzale Che Guevara; they offer ample parking lots where visitors can leave their cars and start pleasant and relaxing walks to discover the beauties of the historic center, with its medieval artistic and architectural treasures kept in the ancient part of the city.
Piazzale Don Germena, easily reachable from the railway station. It is located in Via Einaudi between Via IV Novembre and Via Ailliaud. Leaving the car at this point, you can easily reach the historic center on foot by turning right into Via Einaudi, traveling a short distance, and then, turning right again, into Via Ailliaud, until you reach Largo Beato Umberto.
The second point is located in Piazza del Popolo and has a large parking lot. This square was once called “Pra ‘dla fera” as fairs and markets were held there (the latter are still held today every Thursday morning). From here we leave the square on the North West side and take via Cavalieri di Vittorio Veneto which allows us to immerse ourselves immediately in the narrow medieval streets of Avigliana. Along this street you reach the small square of Santa Maria and you are in the historic center.
The third starting point for a visit to the ancient city village is Piazzale Che Guevara, which is located on the corner with Corso Laghi and Via Sant’Agostino. Parked the car you can immediately discover a wonderful panoramic view of the Castle with the Sacra di San Michele as a background; at this point we cross the Corso Laghi and take via Mario Berta. Here we can already find the first traces of a wall built with the so-called herringbone technique, dating back to around 1300, presumably part of the ancient city walls.
Historical heritage
The wells
Inside the medieval walls, excavated on the rocky relief on which the city stands, as outside, towards the countryside dotted with farmhouses and rural buildings, there are numerous wells for water supply, from different construction periods, of various depths, some with direct drive, others even with double water reserve chambers. In all the best known and most important is certainly the monumental well dating back to the fourteenth century located next door, almost in the center of Piazza Conte Rosso, renowned for its considerable depth – 45 meters – and for the abundance and stability of water from its aquifer.
In the nineteenth century, during cleaning works, countless objects of various historical and archaeological importance were extracted from the bottom. Among these is a fragment of a sculpted column – now in the Civic Museum of Susa – from the second half of the fourteenth century depicting a Franciscan friar with the appearance of a fox in the act of preaching to the faithful represented by hens, geese and ducks. Furthermore, a deep engraving on the crowning stones of the well – MA 1787 – recalls that it was restored by Michele Alotto, mayor of Avigliana and maternal grandfather of Norberto Rosa, at the end of that century.
Conte Rosso square
In the 12th century the Borgo Nuovo di Avigliana was built, of which Piazza Conte Rosso was the organizing center, as well as the seat of markets and fairs (the medieval platea foro). Even today it, which takes its name from the appellation given to Amedeo VII of Savoy, is flanked by buildings with ogival arcades of the medieval period (XIII-XV century) with Baroque architectural revivals and there is a monumental well of the XIV century. On the square dominate the ruins of the castle in a scenic position.
Going up to the head of the square is the Church of Santa Croce, on the left side stands the Town Hall and on the right Casa Beccaccini, formerly the headquarters of the financial offices and the branch of the Cassa di Risparmio, now used as a holiday home. Always following on the right is the Asilo Picco, once the seat of the centenary Società Operaia di Avigliana. In 1926 a war memorial was inaugurated in the square, a neo-Gothic work by the architect Corrado Meano, which was later transferred to the parking lot in Via Umberto I.
Piazzetta Santa Maria
Picturesque square located in the Borgo Vecchio, along the via di Francia and surrounded by houses with remains of Gothic terracotta decorations from the 15th century. The house located between Via XX Settembre and Vicolo Santa Maria, which leads to the church of the same name, featured – as you can discover by looking at old photographs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – a sundial with true solar hours, oriented to the east and old signs of shops, which underline the important commercial role played by the Aviglianese village in the past.
Religious architectures
Chapel of Our Lady of Grace
The chapel, dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie, stands on the site of the large fourteenth-century church of the Trinity belonging to the Convent of the Umiliati, outside the walls of the Borgo Nuovo at the Porta Folla. The current short nave adheres to the choir, which partially escaped the demolition of the convent – which became the seat of the Carthusians of Montebenedetto and Banda from 1595 – commissioned by Carlo Emanuele I as part of the renovation plan of the fortification system of Avigliana, carried out in 1630. It was officiated by them until 1733, when it was sold to the pharmacist Gallizio di Avigliana, who used it as a private chapel of his adjoining residence, the current Norberto elementary school. Among other things, the small church preserves the precious fifteenth-century wooden choir, coming from the suppressed Augustinian convent of Avigliana.
Church of San Giovanni
The process of institutional and land strengthening of the priory of San Pietro, as a dependence of the Prevostura del Moncenisio, during the fourteenth century was mainly aimed at the acquisition of real estate in the Borgo Nuovo area. In this way, the relations of the institution with the emerging families of the village thicken, which favor a pre-existing church of San Giovanni for the foundation of their private chapels, thus contributing both to its significant increase in size and to its transformation into the main seat of the priory itself. Over the course of the century and in the following one, the monumental structure assumed its current dimensions, starting from the apse, up to the height of the bell tower, the opening of side chapels, to reach the current atrium and the facade, in the middle Four hundred.
In the second half of the seventeenth century, the internal structure of the nave and the presbytery underwent profound reshaping in Baroque forms, to which were added minor interventions, especially decorative ones, during the nineteenth century, which also affected the facade. Next to an important sixteenth-eighteenth-century picture gallery, the interior preserves fifteenth-century frescoes – in the atrium – and a notable collection of early sixteenth-century tables – by Defendente Ferrari and Gerolamo Giovenone, in particular – and a splendidly carved wooden pulpit, substantially coeval; it should also be considered that a good part of them, coming from Aviglianese monastic foundations that have long since disappeared, today constitute a rare and extreme testimony.
Church of San Pietro (12th century)
The ancient cemetery church of Avigliana has inside numerous cycles of frescoes made between the 12th and 16th centuries. Of particular interest are those with episodes from the Life of Joseph, Mary and Magdalene, inspired by the Apocryphal Gospels, the work of very active painters in Val di Susa at the end of the 15th century. The church dates back to the 12th century. It was enlarged and embellished in the Gothic style between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, testified by the addition of elements such as the pinnacles. Inside there are numerous frescoes of particular interest dated between the end of the 1300s and the end of the 1400s. The 15th century fresco representing the Castle is important, perhaps the only true testimony of what the Savoy house really was.
Church of Santa Croce
The oratory of Santa Croce, erected on the western side of the present Conte Rosso square. Born in the age of the ancient regime, collecting the inheritance of the local societas batutorum, already documented in 1457, it constantly had an independent life with respect to the nearby parish church of San Giovanni. The church, subject to considerable restoration in the second half of the 18th century, has a rather irregular rectangular plan with five bays; the space corresponding to the last two, once separated from the nave by an imposing iron gate, corresponds to the presbytery and the large choir, strictly intended for the confreres. The façade is enriched by the portal with a broken pediment, the serliana, two niches and the eighteenth-century door, in carved wood. The interior of the building, now devoid of sacred furnishings, which has become municipal property, is home to exhibitions and cultural events.
Oratory of the Gesù
The baroque aspect of the interior is contrasted by the pointed-arched windows. The local Society of Jesus – a widely diffused devotional association in Piedmont in the age of the Counter-Reformation – in 1673, was already preparing this building as its own space for autonomous worship. From the portal, surmounted by a decorated semicircular tympanum, Enter a room with a single nave, once equipped with a rich supply of furnishings, covered by a barrel vault and lunettes, on an overall trapezoidal-shaped layout, divided into four spans by pilasters in imitation marble on which the round arches rest. The stucco altar, equipped with a coeval icon, certainly dates back to a date shortly after the one mentioned. A low bell tower, small in size, with a square plan and exposed brick masonry, built in that same year by workers of Lugano origin, stands at the intersection of the buildings in which the complex is divided. The external staircase, which starts on the west side of the building, leads to the churchyard of the church of Santa Maria.
Parish church of Santa Maria Maggiore
Probably built as a parish church, placed under the control of the canons of the provost of San Lorenzo di Oulx, it is certainly the oldest church in Aviglianese. Its existence is documented starting from the 12th century and these data appear to be proven by rare architectural and archaeological traces. Limited evidence of the subsequent building phase of the Gothic era survives, which can be traced, at different times, in the height of the bell tower – also decorated, like those of San Pietro and San Giovanni, by basins in polychrome ceramic, in a family funeral chapel, located along the south side and later used as a sacristy, in which faint traces of a fresco are preserved, perhaps still from the late fourteenth century and in the pentagonal apse, already from the mid-fifteenth century.
The building underwent a profound restructuring immediately before 1673, which simplified the plan, increasing it with a span and equipping it with the current facade, but reducing it to a single nave, with only two side chapels; this layout was further modified during the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, with the opening of new chapels. In the interior furnishings, constantly increased and updated during the almost millennial life of the building, today almost no trace remains and even the wooden pulpit, from the early eighteenth century, actually comes from the Aviglianese church of Sant’Agostino, which has long since disappeared.
Sacra di San Michele
Monument symbol of the Piedmont Region and the place that inspired the writer Umberto Eco for the best-seller Il nome della Rosa, the Sacra di San Michele is an ancient abbey built between 983 and 987 on the top of Mount Pirchiriano, 40 km away from Turin. From the top of its towers you can admire the Piedmontese capital and a breathtaking view of the Val di Susa. Inside the main church of the Sacra, dating back to the 12th century, members of the royal family of the House of Savoy are buried. Dedicated to the cult of the Archangel Michael, defender of the Christian people, the Sacra di San Michele is part of a pilgrimage route over 2000km long that goes from Mont Saint-Michel, in France, to Monte Sant’Angelo, in Puglia. The history, the spiritual value and the landscape that surrounds it make the Sacra a destination of attraction for visitors from all over Europe: pilgrims, faithful, tourists, but also sportsmen who want to test themselves with climbing or mountain biking trails.
Charterhouse 1515
Former Franciscan convent of the 1500s, the Certosa di Avigliana is today a place of rest and thought managed by the Certosa1515 Association, chaired by Luigi Ciotti. The association deals with the enhancement and management of this splendid structure immersed in the green of the Montagna del Bosco and overlooking the lakes of Avigliana. Certosa1515 organizes and hosts training courses, cultural activities and events open to all, in the belief that culture is the engine of social commitment and change.
Civil architectures
Cantamerlo House
The villa called “Il Cantamerlo” from an image of the singing bird frescoed on the vault of the tower, was in the past the canonical house of the parish of Saints John and Peter in the Borgo Nuovo. It was sold in 1860 by the parish priest, Don Giovanni Maria Vignolo, to the Aviglianese lawyer and poet Norberto Rosa, who had a few years to enjoy his “small farm”. The building with the its park, which goes up the slopes of the fortress of the Castle, is a notable example of a neo-medieval residence, rebuilt on ancient pre-existing structures, hinged on the tower and developed around a courtyard. Inside, some rooms, such as the ‘arms room’, near the entrance, the ‘reception room’ and the ‘throne room’ retain examples of neo-medieval furniture and pictorial decoration.
Of particular value is also a Roman stele, depicting a prisoner, walled up in the atrium, datable to the first half of the second century. AD and considered by Natalino Bartolomasi a sculptural representation of the victory of Septimius Severus over Clodio Albino. It was placed in 1859 at the home of the parish priest by the Capuchin father Placido Bacco, who had found it during the excavations he was conducting in the Aviglianese village of Malano, in search of the archaeological traces of the Roman “ad fines”.
House of Blessed Umberto III of Savoy
The imposing late medieval building, divided into a central body and side sleeves, erected to delimit a large central courtyard, therefore appears to be composed of a manor residence of considerable proportions, embellished on the upper floor by a splendid loggia and peripheral buildings used as service functions, which lead it back to the type of the stronghold. In addition to the size and the presence of stretches of battlements, now walled up, its particular position, relatively isolated and dominating the entrance to the street, along which the oldest stretch of the Borgo Vecchio develops, justifies its interpretation as a structure residential-defensive system, whose dual function must have been entrusted from the beginning to a prestigious family of Savoy faith.
The protection of access from Via XX Settembre – allowed only by a brick bridge that crosses Via Alliaud – guaranteed by a massive seventeenth-century ashlar portal with an overhanging tympanum and scrolls, underlines the sense of continuity in the intentions of isolating the complex, even when its primitive public function of defense of the village must have been abandoned for a long time.
House of the Porta Ferrata
All that remains of the original building is the facade, the subject of a careful restoration, as can be seen from the comparison with nineteenth-century photographs that document its previous state. Although incomplete, its building structure offers itself as one of the most significant examples of medieval Aviglianese monumentality; its value appears further strengthened by the particularity of the repertoire of decorative forms proposed.
The portico has pointed arches, highlighted by terracotta frames and supported by round masonry pillars, crowned by capitals sculpted with fantastic figures. The string course is made up of crossed arches supported by small shelves with the heads of men, animals and grotesque beings. The elegant three-lobed mullioned windows – a now rare Aviglianese architectural-decorative motif – are supported by a slender stone column with a sculpted capital and enclosed by terracotta frames with chiaroscuro effects. The overall beauty is also testified by the particular interest that induced Alfredo D’Andrade to study the monument, to the point of reproducing it faithfully in the medieval village of Turin – created for the 1884 exhibition – alongside other buildings derived from the models considered most significant among the surviving buildings from Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta from the 15th century.
Senore House
The fourteenth-century construction is characteristic for the ‘herringbone’ wall face and the portico with pointed arches decorated with terracotta frames and stone capitals; the mullioned windows on the first floor stand out for their elegance. In the original building, only the porticoed part and two small rooms above it survive. The building, which remained uncovered for a long time, was the subject of a systematic restoration in the early twentieth century, followed by Alfredo d’Andrade, consisting in the laying of the bases, columns and capitals in Bussoleno stone on the model of the Porta Ferrata house; in the placement of windows and doors on the west front and a new brick floor; in the reconstruction of the fireplace on the first floor, in the smoothing of the tympanums of the mullioned windows and in the placement of the lead windows.
The Casa Senore – named after the last private owner, before its municipal acquisition – is also locally remembered as the “Bishop’s House”, although Avigliana has never been an episcopal seat. Overlooking the ancient road of France that crosses the Borgo Vecchio di Avigliana, it is, at the same time, a precious testimony of civil architectural typologies emerging in the medieval urban fabric and an important document – for the particular methods used in the restoration work – of the cultural Neo-medieval, Piedmontese and European, late nineteenth – early twentieth century.
Town Hall and Civic Tower
The porticoed portion of the southern side of Piazza Conte Rosso is today largely occupied by the municipal offices, which are developed involving both the body of the building, located further east, towards Via Umberto I, still preserved in its medieval guise and recently restored., both the contiguous building with a late seventeenth-century layout, but insistent on pre-existing Gothic buildings, and the square tower behind it, which, dating back to the thirteenth century, appears to be the oldest structure in the complex.
On the facade of the building is painted the coat of arms of the Municipality which presents a red cross on a silver field with four golden bees at the corners of the cross and one in the abyss. On the adjacent fourteenth-century sleeve, recent restorations have brought to light interesting polychrome frescoes and traces of Gothic windows. On the southern side overlooking the internal courtyard, you can see the remains engraved in the plaster of a large nineteenth-century sundial, almost completely canceled by the positioning of stone galleries, which serve as a link between the internal staircase of the medieval tower and the body of the building. Inside, a couple of rooms, the mayor’s office and the old council chamber, still retain furnishings and decorations in a generally neo-medieval style.
Military architectures
The ruins of the castle dominate the town, destroyed in the seventeenth century, which can be accessed with a short walk from piazza Conte Rosso. The castle is mentioned for the first time between 1058 and 1061 on the occasion of the chronicle illustrating the construction of the monastery of San Michele della Chiusa. On the sidelines of the narration that led to the foundation between 983 and 987 of the Michaelic monastery of Mount Pirchiriano, the chronicler describes that the Marquis Arduino V habitually resided in the castle of Avigliana which with certainty had to perform an essential strategic function for the Marquis during the middle of the 11th century.
Avigliana Castle
Built in 942 by Arduino Glabrione, Marquis of Turin, the Castle remained the key to the Val di Susa for many centuries. Given its position, it had notable development, but also destruction and looting. It was enlarged, equipped with crenellated walls and drawbridges. Little by little it lost the aspect of a feudal manor to become a fortress, surrounded by bastions, trenches and grassy terraces. It was definitively destroyed by the French troops of Marshal Catinat in 1691.
Porta Ferronia
Dating back to the thirteenth century, the building was on two floors with a portico, passing under which you enter a large courtyard. The pointed arches with terracotta frames are supported by round pillars decorated with capitals sculpted with figures.
Wall fortifications
In different points of the historic center some remains of the defensive system and access to the city are visible: doors (S. Maria-in the photo-, Ferronia, S. 15th century. Access gates, walls incorporated into buildings from a later period, some towers, give an idea of the complexity of the city defensive system that was linked to that of the Castle.
Clock tower
In 1330, the first in Piedmont and second in Italy after that of S. Eustorgio in Milan, a public clock was installed on an octagonal tower which from then on took the name of “Torre dell’Orologio”. This complex was reproduced in the medieval village of Valentino in Turin. The tower, once part of the fourteenth-century fortified circuit of Borgo Nuovo and built around the end of that century, is close to the area on which the residence of the Testa family stood – which was the birthplace of the Augustinian friar Cherubino (1451-1479), beatified in 1865 – and perhaps it is recognizable as one of the residual traces.
Rich in terracotta decorations and octagonal in shape, with a series of hanging arches, imitating corbels, the tower widens upwards to form a roof terrace of non-plastered bricks with eight pointed windows. Faithfully reproduced in the medieval village of Turin, built at Valentino for the 1884 Exhibition, it is erroneously called “Torre dell’Orologio”, perhaps in memory of another nearby large corner tower, formerly the seat of the medieval municipality and, according to tradition, equipped with a fourteenth-century public clock among the oldest in Italy, probably second only to that of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan. The latter, easily identifiable in the seventeenth-century iconography of the village, stood at the end of the homonymous street, at the corner of the curtain walls; presumably burned and destroyed during the capture of Avigliana in 1691, it was finally razed to the ground at the end of the 19th century.
Cultural space
Museums
“Memories of the past” museum (in Giaveno)
The “Memories of a time” museum, by Fernando “Nando” Sada, is located in Via Giaveno 65 (Benna Bianca) in Avigliana and is open to the public by reservation only.
Nobel Dynamite Museum
For a century it marked the life of Avigliana, and now it has become a museum. The Nobel dynamite factory was the first plant built in Italy for the manufacture of dynamite, transformed after the war into a paint factory. The dynamite factory was founded by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish businessman, inventor of dynamite, who took advantage of the abolition, in 1869, of the state monopoly on the manufacture of explosives. Nobel also arrived in Italy on the wave of difficulties with the French government, to which he had offered the production of ballistite, patented by himself in England in 1888, the manufacture of which was deemed too dangerous.
To the east of the marsh of the Mareschi are the monumental remains of the most important world factory of explosives of the 1940s. The main reason for this displacement choice was certainly the presence of hill formations that allowed the town to be protected from the effects of the explosions that could be caused by this dangerous activity. The complex, which represents one of the most interesting examples of industrial architecture of the beginning of the century, was one of the first industrial plants in Avigliana; at that time it was called the “Anonymous Society for the manufacture of dynamite, Nobel patent”. The construction of the plant was begun, which was completed in 1873. In 1908 the Nobel Company also purchased from the Cravotto family other land in the Allemandi region for the establishment of factories for the production of new types of powder. In 1825 from the small department of the “first-born” Valloya factory, under a patent of the American Dupont, the Duco paint factory began, a complex that later became part of the Montecatini Group.
During the last world war the area was the scene of bombing and subject to partisan actions. The subsequent crisis of the military commissions and the varied displacement needs caused the progressive decay of the industrial complex which ceased production in the 60s of the last century. Recently, various activities have regained strength in this same fabric, grouped in an Integrated Development Pole, giving life to a modern and dynamic industrial area.
The Museum, inaugurated in September 2002, was set up by the Amici di Avigliana Association which still collaborates for guided tours. In addition to explanatory and audiovisual panels that, with period films, document the various phases of the processing of explosives, you can visit the anti-aircraft shelter for the workers and the various tunnels and burst chambers, brought to light during the renovation works. There are also some suggestive sound simulations that lend themselves to recalling the extremely difficult working conditions of the time.
Events
In addition to the weekly Avigliana market, which takes place every Thursday (with some exceptions) in Piazza del Popolo (formerly Pra d’la Fera), the historic Palio dei Borghi di Avigliana takes place in June on the third Sunday of the month. In November the agricultural fair takes place on the first Saturday of the month and the trade fair on the first Sunday of the month.
Natural areas
Among the attractions of natural origin are the two small lakes, called Laghi di Avigliana, of morainic origin commonly called Lago Piccolo and Lago Grande. The marshy area around the lakes has been the natural park of the Avigliana Lakes since 1980 and is home to numerous species of birds including gray herons, mallards, moorhens.
Avigliana Lakes Natural Park
The Sacra di San Michele dominates this protected area from above, reminding everyone that, starting from the year 1000, it has represented the reference point for every pilgrim who crossed the Alps on a pilgrimage to Rome or the Holy Land. Today, hundreds of species of aquatic birds, which nest and winter there every year, find protection in its shade at the Avigliana lakes.
The park consists of three ecosystems: the two lakes, the marsh of the Mareschi and the morainic hills. The lakes are the only survivors among those formed following the last two great Pleistocene glaciations in the Susa Valley. The aquatic fauna consists of: carp, pike, largemouth bass, perch, bleak, chub, rudd. However, it is the avifauna that presents the most interesting species: coot, little grebe, black kite, bittern, lesser spotted woodpecker, creeper, water rail, moorhen, cormorant, great grebe, gray heron. The small lake is the best solution for bird watching, where you can observe mallards, coots, gray herons and grebe, which between late winter and early spring performs its characteristic courtship ritual called “mirror dance”.
Protected Areas of the Cottian Alps
The «Parco Naturale dei Laghi di Avigliana» (now the management body of the protected areas of the Cottian Alps) is located in the Morainic Amphitheater of Avigliana. Inside there are two beautiful lakes. Bird refuge with points for observing animals and for walks in the countryside. There are four Parks of the Cozie Alps (established in 1980), covering a total area of over 18,000 hectares, covering a vast territory that rises from the plain to the 3538 m height of the Rocciamelone peak, on the Val di Susa, the Val Sangone and Val Chisone. It is a water park – the Avigliana Lakes park – and three natural mountain parks – the Val Troncea park, the Orsiera Rocciavré park and the Gran Bosco di Salbertrand park.
The Avigliana Lakes Natural Park is mainly concerned with the protection of the wetland of the Mareschi, the restoration of the hydrobiological conditions of the lakes, eliminating pollution, and the enhancement of the area, creating a close symbiosis with the city of Avigliana. The Val Troncea, Orsiera Rocciavré and Gran Bosco di Salbertrand Parks protect typically alpine environments, protecting not only nature but also the history of their territory crossed by important works such as military roads and scattered with historical-cultural heritage from the hills famous for ancient battles to mines, iceboxes and points of interest steeped in centuries of human history.