Frassinello Monferrato

The castle stands on the hilltop, and the position says what it was for: a fortress. It is recorded from the eleventh century, when the royal diploma of Henry III names Frassinello cum castro et corte et cappella. Of the medieval work little survives but the Caminata, a wide late-Gothic hall where lords and vassals met by the fire.

For centuries it belonged to the Nemours, counts of Frassinello and lords of Lignano, whose arms, joined with the Sacchi, survive in a mosaic; the family sold it in 1945. The second castle, at Lignano, is named after a Lucius Herennius recorded on a plaque; in 1416 the marquis of Montferrat granted it to Manfredo Cane.