Torrazza Coste

The name comes from a tower. A twelfth-century diploma of Frederick I speaks of the territory of Turris Centum Costarum, the tower of the hundred slopes, a fief of the bishop of Tortona to be annexed to the Principate of Pavia; the tower with its small fort had been built a century earlier. Before that, on the Maresco plateau, there had been a Roman village called Dianum, from the temple dedicated to Diana: it was destroyed in the fifth century and nothing more was ever heard of its inhabitants.

For centuries, though, the comune was not called that: its official name was Sant'Antonino, one of the hamlets up on the hills, and only around 1800 did people begin to say Torrazza Coste; the town hall moved after 1815. One mistake, on the other hand, still circulates in the local histories: after the Beccaria of Pieve del Cairo died out, in 1591, the fief passed to the counts Rovida of Pavia and stayed with them until the end of feudalism — the enfeoffment to the Paleari that one reads about comes from confusion with today's Torrazzetta di Borgo Priolo, which back then was also called Torrazza. Today this is wine country, and at Riccagioia there is a centre for vine experimentation and clonal selection.