The name most likely comes from manencia, "place of sojourn", and has to do with the Benedictines: at Manta stood a house of friars from the abbey of Pedona, today Borgo San Dalmazzo. It is backed by the catalogue of churches that in 1386 paid the cathedraticum to the bishop of Turin, which lists the Ecclesia Sancti Leonis de Manencio.
A fortified structure stood on the castle's site by the twelfth century, later taken by the marquises of Saluzzo; in the fifteenth, under Valerano, the fortress became a court and artists were called in. In the baronial hall the Master of the Castello della Manta painted the Nine Heroes and Nine Heroines and the Fountain of Youth, taken from the courtly romance Chevalier Errant.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Manta
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Manta, but an easy day trip away.