Avigliana Castle is one of the oldest castles in Piedmont (reputedly dating back to the 10th century). Now just a ruin, it is located in Avigliana at the mouth of the Susa Valley, 25 km from Turin.
Location
The castle is located on the summit of Mount Pezzulano (467 m a.s.l.) just above the town of Avigliana. It lies a short distance from Avigliana's medieval town centre (Piazza Conte Rosso). It overlooks the Avigliana lakes (especially Lago Grande), the morainic hill of Rivoli and the famous Sacra di San Michele.
History
It is said that Cleph, king of the lombards, built the earliest fortification on the Pezzulano peak in 574, but the earliest mention of the current structure is in 924 under the margrave of Turin Arduin Glaber. With its mighty bulk and high towers, it expanded rapidly thanks to its position (it was the last stronghold before Turin for those invading from France), undergoing frequent assaults and much looting over the centuries.
XI & XII centuries
The earliest mention of a castrum Avilianae dates back to 961. It is first documented in the marginalia of a chronicle dated between 1058 and 1061 concerning the foundation of the Sacra di San Michele. The chronicler mentions that the margrave Arduin V used to reside in the castle of Avigliana. This stronghold also performed an important defensive function as a base during the 10th century in the long fight against the Saracen invasion of north-western Italy.
In 1137, the building is documented as being one of the favourite seats of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy when he resided on this side of the Alps (the Counts of Savoy had only acquired Piedmont in 1091 through the dowery of the margravine Adelaide of Susa). It was the base for his expansion towards Turin in the following century. Humbert III of Savoy, Amadeus III's son and heir, was born there on 4 August 1136.
Avigliana was a significant source of revenue for the Savoy family as it stood on a popular merchant route to France and Flanders and was a source of tolls.
When there were no counts in residence, the castle of Avigliana was the permanent seat of a castellan (appointed by the count) who administered the surrounding territory on behalf of his master, who in turn was a feudal lord of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Frederick Barbarossa destroyed the castle during his descent into Italy, together with the surrounding villages of Ferronia and Pagliarino, and it was later rebuilt by Thomas I of Savoy.
Over the course of three centuries, the castle was established as one of the count's main command centres, resulting in the growth of an urban settlement at the foot of the hill on which it stood.
Nothing is known about the construction of the castrum at the end of the 10th century and very little about the following two centuries. In the 11th century, the castle and village comprised basic layout of a fortified hilltop with an adjacent older settlement lining the Via Francigena that passed on the northern side of the rocky protuberance of Mount Pezzulano.
XIII & XIV centuries
The structure that emerges from documents of the 13th and 14th centuries shows an irregularly ellipsoidal enclosure that follows the contours of the natural relief. The castle comprises a residential wing with a chapel, leaning against the eastern side, a massive square central tower and a semi-circular false tower in the southern corner. During the 13th century, the castle gate, a pit and an oven are mentioned, as are wooden shingle and tile roofs. In 1212, the castle chapel, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, is mentioned. In 1268, an aula castri, or courtroom, is mentioned for the first time, and in 1307 a sala castri is positioned next to the courtroom and intended for both social life and formal government.
Fourteenth-century documents testify to a multi-storey residential wing with reception rooms and a chapel at the upper levels and service rooms and cellars on the ground floor. This wing overlooked an upper inner courtyard with stables, a bread oven and the granerium, used to store the proceeds in kind from the payment of banna (taxes).
On 24 February 1360, Amedeo VII Count of Savoy, known as the Red Count, was born here, and in 1368 Phillip II of Piedmont, the rebel prince who had ruled Turin on behalf of the Green Count (who whose court was based on the other side of the Alps) was imprisoned there while awaiting a sentence of death by drowning in the Lake of Avigliana.
XV century onwards
In August 1449, the old castle saw the birth of Bona of Savoy, future wife of the powerful Duke of Milan Galeazzo Maria Sforza.