Verzuolo castle stands on the hill above the town. The first records date from 1087, but the building you see today was begun in 1377, when Frederick II, marquess of Saluzzo, ordered the old castle pulled down and rebuilt larger and more heavily fortified. His successors went on improving it, and for a long stretch it was the chief stronghold of the marquisate of Saluzzo.
What to see
What you see from a distance, climbing towards the hill, is no longer a fortress. In 1600 the front was renewed and changed its character: from military work to luxury residence. From then on the castle served as a summer house, and among those who stayed there were Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy and the printer Giambattista Bodoni. Today it presents itself as a compact block on the wooded ridge, with the tower rising above the trees.
Visiting
The castle lost important pieces in the twentieth century. When the line of the counts of Verzuolo died out it passed to Amedeo Mola di Larissé and a period of neglect began; on 18 June 1916 one of the two rectangular towers collapsed, and much of the castle archive was destroyed in the fall, including documents important for the history of Piedmont. The surviving rectangular tower was demolished in 1938 along with the Belvedere tower. In 2022 the complex was sold to a property company.
Our editors' tip
It is worth looking at it while thinking about what was lost in a single day. A castle archive is not a collection of curiosities: it is the deeds, the accounts, the letters and the lawsuits of centuries, and for a marquisate like Saluzzo it was the written memory of a small state. On 18 June 1916 a tower fell and took it away. The best place to see the castle from is the road climbing out of Verzuolo towards the hill, preferably in autumn, when the wood thins and the outline of the building stands clear.