Montemale di Cuneo

Montemale di Cuneo sits on the ridge between the Maira and Grana valleys, and the first mention of it is a private deed: in 1098 Rodolfo, lord of the place, and his wife Richelda made a donation to the monastery of Savigliano. The family named after the village became vassals of the marquises of Saluzzo and came to hold Vottignasco and part of Saluzzo. It ended badly: in 1384, after the Montemale sided with the Provençals, marquis Federico II took the fief from them, joined it to those of Monterosso, Valgrana and Pradleves and gave the lot to his brother Eustachio; the dispossessed lords had to move to Cuneo.

The castle above the village has had as unsettled a life. Abandoned for centuries, in the nineteenth century it was pulled apart by local people, who used its walls as a quarry for building material; in 1933 the court of Cuneo auctioned what was left and Alessandro Savio, an engineer from Dronero, took it for 8,007 lire. He rebuilt it on the old plan, reusing some of the old masonry, gave it his own surname and meant it to be a hotel. A hotel it was only briefly: during the war a prison camp for Yugoslav officers was set up there, and it later went to the diocese of Genoa as a summer house for priests.