The Sacra di San Michele stands on the summit and can be seen from half of Piedmont, but the abbey's power was exercised down here, in this palace on the slopes of the Pirchiriano. Here the castellan lived, here justice was administered, here the abbots came when they had to deal with worldly matters. The mountain was the prayer; this was the office.
What to see
Construction began after Frederick Barbarossa invested the abbot with the territory of Sant'Ambrogio, and it was completed in 1176. A document of the following century calls it the abbot's castle, and a castle it was: the seat of command over a village growing along the road to France.
Then the trouble began. In 1363 English mercenary troops destroyed the palace and sacked the village, with the backing of the abbot himself. Over the next two centuries it passed to the Spanish, the French and finally to the Savoy, who armed it; it was damaged in two sieges and reduced to a ruin, used as a stone quarry and then swallowed by the houses of the village.
Visiting
The palace is just above the old centre of Sant'Ambrogio, a few minutes on foot; it has been restored and can be visited during openings and events, so it is worth checking first. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Climb up and look down the valley. From here you see the mouth of the Val di Susa and, behind it, the Turin plain: whoever stood at this point controlled the road to France, that is the traffic, the pilgrims and the tolls. It is not a fine view that happened by chance, it is the reason the palace was built exactly here.