Costa Vescovato: sights, history and trails

The municipality is situated on the ridge between the Ossona streams and the Cornigliasca rio.

It was one of the territories subject to the temporal domain of bishops of Tortona, from which the name derives. Subject, like the entire territory, to the expansionist aims of the Duchy of Milan, it was the scene of jurisdictional conflicts between the bishops and the Spanish government first and then the Savoy government. After the Napoleonic period it definitively became the territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The absolute lordship in the Langhe was subjected to the secular jurisdiction of the bishops of Tortona with "high and full dominion" and with the exercise of mero et mix impervious, recognized with full sovereignty and independence, although this autonomy was often contested and opposed militarily over the centuries. The Pope alone was recognized as the vassalage of the bishops, taking the oath to keep the possessions of the Church of Tortona intact. The origin of the lordship probably dates back to the donation of its territories by the Lombard king Aribert II to the Church in 706, whose autonomy was confirmed by Liutprand in 716. Full independence was achieved, presumably, with the emperor Charles the Bald who at the Diet of 875 recognized the temporal lordships of the Italian bishops, probably referring to Louis the Pious who in 817 had confirmed the donations of the kings Lombards at the Heritage of San Pietro. However, the difficulties of maintaining the independence of the fiefdom increased with the birth of powerful neighbors and the growing strategic position that these lands located between the port of Genoa, Milan and the Sale road of Lombardy assumed economically. When the Duchy of Milan became a Spanish possession there was no shortage of clashes of arms between the bishop's militias and the Spanish garrison of Serravalle (Scrivia). With the transfer of the imperial fiefs of the Langhe to the Savoy in 1738, the lordship became an island of episcopal dominion within the Savoy province of Tortona. The Turin court attempted several times to impose its high power over the fiefdom on the bishops, but it was only with Bishop Carlo Pejretti (1783-1795) and the consent of the Roman Curia that the bishops of Tortona renounced their independence over the lands of the Bishopric. Thus on 9 January 1784 the sovereign lordship was ceded to the Savoys in exchange for the perpetual enfeoffment of Cambio in Lomellina with the title of principality in favor of the Tortona prelates and annexed the rights of sturgeon fishing, tolls on the Po and lordship of the surrounding river islands. The lands of the bishop's lordship extended over the hills of the Langhe east of the Scrivia and south of Tortona, between the valleys of the Borbera and Grue torrents up to the confluence with the Scrivia, bordering the fiefdoms of the Savoy and the marquisates of Avolasca, of Garbagna, of Borghetto in Val Borbera (1692-1752), the lordship of Vargo. It included the villages and castles of Stazzano, Sardigliano, Cuquello, Malvino, Gavazzana, Sant'Agata, Carezzano (until the 16th century the administrative seat of the feudal vicar on behalf of the bishops), Vezzano, Sant'Alosio, Costa del Vescovo (ceased by 1775), Sarizzola, Spineto, Sipario, Lugagnano, Basilica, Mossabella, Bavantore, Bavantorino, Castellania and Garbagna (annexed by Milan in the 14th century). The villages of Castellania and Sant'Agata were enfeoffed to the Rampini di Sant'Alosio.

• Church of San Martino Bishop
• Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary in Montale Celli
• Church of Saints Fabiano and Sebastian in Sarizzola

Below is a table relating to the administrations that have succeeded one another in this municipality.

• Gian Carlo Vaccari: Costa Vescovato, Montale Celli, Sarizzola, Fossaghello, ancient lands of the bishops of Tortona (ms. to the Author)