Battifollo sits on a hill terrace that looks over both the Mongia valley and the upper Tanaro valley, among chestnut woods and meadows, from six hundred metres up to the 1121 of Bric Ciarandella. The name probably comes from battifolle, the medieval word for defences thrown up in haste with ditches, timber, faggots and stones, which once armed the ridge the village still occupies. Out of those defences grew a tower and then a proper castle, first named in 1203 in an investiture of marquis Ottone as Battifollum, sive castrum ultra Tanagrum, the castle beyond the Tanaro.
From the thirteenth century the village belonged to the marquisate of Ceva, which held it until the eighteenth, and the Ceva di Battifollo marquises lived in the castle until the end of that century; in 1796 the French troops of general Sérurier took it and then pulled it down, as they did with almost every stronghold nearby. A massive square tower, ruined bastions and stretches of wall remain, and on the heights, at the bric della Bastia, the entrenchments of the battlefield can still be seen. The parish church of San Giorgio was designed by Giovanni Battista Schellino, next to the crenellated bell tower left from the older church. From 1928 to 1947 the comune was administered by Bagnasco.
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📅 Every year, on 23 April
On 23 April Battifollo, a municipality of 234 inhabitants in the province of Cuneo, celebrates its patron Saint George; the Castello di Battifollo 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 Battifollo, but an easy day trip away.
