Settimo Torinese

Settimo is the seventh milestone from Turin — ad septimum lapidem — and like Collegno, the fifth, and Rivoli, the eighth, it carries the distance from the capital in its name; only this one counted eastwards, on the Roman road to Pavia and Piacenza. In the district built around the Fiat works a votive inscription to Jupiter Best and Greatest came to light: the initials D.O.M., which the Romans dedicated to Jupiter, still stand on the front of almost every Catholic church. Fought over for centuries between the marquises of Monferrato and the Savoys, who won it in 1435, it had as its last feudal lords the Falletti of Barolo.

Settimo is the town that has signed its name on millions of pages: here Aurora makes fountain pens, and the tradition of pens and household goods has marked the local industrial identity. Conversion has given it spaces like the Archimede library, among the most visited in Piedmont, and city status came in 1958. On 8 August 1944, near the Pramolle farmstead, the Germans hanged six young partisans: the flyover built above the spot now carries that date as its name. Along the Po and the canals, the Freidano ecomuseum tells of mills and washerwomen; the medieval tower holds on in the centre. Turin is ten minutes away: Settimo is its north-eastern gate, solid and in transformation.