The castle stands on the hills behind Busca, inside the park that carries the same name. It was built from 1831 at the wish of marquis Roberto Taparelli d'Azeglio, brother of Massimo, and of his wife Costanza Alfieri di Sostegno, who used it until 1862 as a summer and autumn residence. The name comes from the roccoli, the nets once used to catch birds.
What to see
It is a piece of neo-medieval revival, and the style is born from the meeting of the Savoy court with the marquises' anglophile culture. Among the trees rises the tower with its Ghibelline merlons; the inner court is decorated in terracotta with Moorish elements. The main front, closed between two round towers, recalls English neo-Gothic houses, and a double flight of steps leads to the interiors, where trompe-l'oeil and stucco decoration, landscape views and leaded coloured glass dominate. Most of the furnishings come from the workshop of the cabinetmaker Gabriele Capello. In the chapel a short way off are choir stalls of the sixteenth century, bought by the marchioness from the marquisal chapel of Revello.
Visiting
The park is half the place and rewards the time you give it: fifty hectares with holm oak, tulip tree, copper beech, osmanthus and cherry laurel, and then maples, limes, horse chestnuts and yews. Behind the castle lies a romantic garden, in front a series of terraces draws a classical one. There are a lake, a glasshouse built between 1846 and 1850, and a whole sequence of grottoes, waterfalls, bridges, fountains, balustrades and niches.
Our editors' tip
Among the guests who passed through here were Silvio Pellico, Cavour, king Umberto I, queen Margherita and two British prime ministers, Palmerston and Gladstone. Keeping that in mind helps you read the building: it was neither a fortress nor an ordinary country villa, but the place where part of the Savoy ruling class went to spend the autumn and to talk.