San Benedetto Belbo

San Benedetto Belbo takes its name from a Benedictine monastery founded on the hill by the Belbo by monks who came to the Langhe from the abbey of Santa Maria di Castiglione, near Parma. It grew into a wealthy monastic fief, a priory that also held the lands of Niella, Feisoglio, Saliceto, Priero and Gottasecca. The village formed later on the height above it: the old rectory survives, with stretches of the castle wall and the Del Carretto arms on the Porta Sottana.

Beppe Fenoglio came here as a child for the summer, staying with his father's relatives, and kept coming all his life. He set La malora and Un giorno di fuoco here, and his pages keep returning to the censa di Placido, the village shop that stocked everything. The stream, the cemetery and the Bossola pass recur too, an old crossroads where the writer wished to be buried.