Cortanze is a small comune in the Asti hills, with the hamlets of Roera and San Rocco. Its arms are red, with a gold castle of two towers and ghibelline merlons, surmounted by three silver wheels set two and one, the badge of the Roero family. The parish church of Santi Pietro e Giovanni keeps an altarpiece of the Ten Thousand Martyrs with Saint Syrus of Pavia, brought from the Gesù church in Asti.
Giovanni Battista Farina was born here in 1893, tenth of eleven children of Giuseppe and Giacinta Vigna. The family left for Turin, where his father sold Asti wine brought down by the new steam tramway. Known as Pinin, the son founded the coachbuilding firm named after his nickname and in 1961 took Pininfarina as his surname. To his home village he left a recreation centre for his parents: Roberto Gabetti and Aimaro Isola designed it with Giorgio Raineri, and it went up between 1964 and 1967 against the old buttress walls, the post office below and a roof terrace continuing the square.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 3 February
On 3 February Cortanze, a municipality of 288 inhabitants in the province of Asti, celebrates its patron Saint Blaise; the Castello di Cortanze stands in its territory.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Cortanze, but an easy day trip away.
