The patron saint of Moncalieri is Blessed Bernard of Baden, celebrated on 15 July: a German prince, he died of plague in the town in 1458 while travelling to Germany, and following miracles attributed to him he was beatified, becoming the town's patron in place of the previous protector, Saint Giles the Abbot, to whom a church in the Borgo Navile area is nonetheless still dedicated. His remains have been kept since 1458 in the town's collegiate church, remodelled in the 19th century with the addition of a rose window and a balustrade, and enriched with works such as the terracotta statue group of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ and the Assumption by Beaumont and Molinari from 1766.
Moncalieri owes its historical importance above all to its castle, a Savoy residence since the 12th century and repeatedly embellished and reinforced over the centuries, particularly between 1710 and 1775 through the work of craftsmen such as Benedetto Alfieri and Francesco Martinez. It was precisely here that, in 1475, Duchess Yolande, wife of Amadeus IX of Savoy, signed a political treaty with Charles the Bold of Burgundy and Galeazzo Sforza, and where, centuries later, the famous Proclamation was signed that earned the town the nickname «City of the Proclamation», a crucial episode of the Italian Risorgimento. Every year, in October, the town also re-enacts the traditional Fera dij subjet, the whistle festival established in 1286 by Amadeus V of Savoy for his people.
