In 1553 an imperial commissioner, Gerolamo Sacco di Ceva, reached Millesimo with orders to dismantle the castle: not because it was weak, but because it would have been too useful to whoever took it. The governor of Milan, Ferrante I Gonzaga, at war with France, preferred a ruin of his own to a French fortress. Since then the building that dominates the old town of the upper Bormida valley has never been whole again.
What to see
The plan is quadrangular, with two side towers and fortified walls. The oldest part, that is the tower, the keep and the east wall, dates from the second half of the thirteenth century, when the Del Carretto had already turned Millesimo into a fortified town: Enrico II saw to that in 1206, while the castle proper may have come later, with the division of the family lands among the sons of Giacomo Del Carretto that in 1268 produced the marquisates of Finale, Millesimo and Novello.
From up there its purpose is obvious: together with the strongholds of Cosseria, Roccavignale and Cengio it sealed the valley, and the valley was the road between Piedmont and the sea. The marquises Del Carretto di Millesimo lived here, backed first by the commune of Asti and from 1393 by the marquises of Monferrato. In 1447 the chronicler Gianmario Filelfo places in these rooms the gathering of the various branches of the family, called to settle a strategy against the Republic of Genoa, which was threatening war on the marquisate of Finale; in the war that followed, ended in 1448, the fortress took in Bannina, wife of Galeotto I Del Carretto, lord of Finale.
Visiting
The municipality bought the castle in 1989 and restored it: today it is open and hosts classical concerts and exhibitions. You walk up from the centre of Millesimo, a few minutes of climb; the opening calendar follows the events programme, so it is worth checking before you set off. The route is short and you should not expect furnished rooms: what you look at here is masonry, the tower and the view over the Bormida.
Our editors' tip
Go for a concert if the chance comes: music inside a thirteenth-century keep is the one thing that puts those stones back to work. And on the way down look for the town hall: that is where the Del Carretto moved their seat after the dismantling, and the drop from the fortress on the hill to the palace on the flat tells the end of a lordship in two buildings. The last blow to the structure, in any case, came not from the imperial commissioner but from Napoleon: in 1796 the first battles between French and Austro-Piedmontese troops passed through here.