Maretto: sights, history and trails

The coat of arms and gonfalone were granted with DPR on 21 March 1997.^[4]

The melo and the writing under the tree refer to the ancient name of the country: Maletum, meaning "apple orchard". The blue of the border and the French lilies refer to the period in which the County of Asti came under the dominion of the Orléans and then of the Kings of France.

The gonfalone is a yellow drape, with blue edging.

The Brotherhood of the Holy Cross of Maretto dates back to the second half of the seventeenth century. It is located in the concentric town, a few meters from the parish church. The first stone for the building was laid on November 22, 1686 and the church was consecrated on December 14, 1689, obtaining from Rome a reliquary of the Holy Cross, guarded in an appropriate closet behind the main altar and exposed to the faithful at the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross. Today this liturgical feast took the name "Exaltation of the Holy Cross" and is celebrated on September 14. Pope Benedict XIV in 1744 granted plenary indulgence to members of the Brotherhood on the day of the feast. The relics of Maretto obtained the approval of the bishop of Asti Michele Amatore Lobetti in 1839. It is a wooden fragment preserved in a small silver relic.

Since the end of the 1990s, restoration works have been carried out, which allowed us to return to use the church some times a year: in Lent for a Via Crucis, on the occasion of Palm Sunday for the blessing of olive trees and in September to celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. On this occasion the relics of the Holy Cross are displayed during Mass and at the end the blessing is given with the relic.

Four sixteenth-century canvases and a couple of reliquary busts belong to the Confraternity, dedicated to San Giocondo and to Santa Placida. As for the canvases, one depicts theImmaculate and it is the altarpiece dedicated to her, and three others depict scenes of Passion. Two of these, dated 1688, were restored in 2008: theAgonia in Gethsemane and the Flagellation. In 2009 the fourth canvas was restored: the Deposition from the cross. The two reliquary busts, also from the seventeenth century, were restored at the beginning of 2009 by the competent Superintendence in view of an exhibition on the Baroque of Asti.

The main altar was restored between 2010 and 2011. In 2012 the crucifix of the altar and two wooden angels were restored.

The rural church of the Madonna dei Sette Dolori is located in Barbone. It dates back to the 1930s. It was built by the brothers Bernardino and Francesco Caprero for testamentary disposition of his father, Giacomo Caprero. The altar was blessed in 1743. The oldest name is “Blessed Virgin Mary of the Seven Pain”. At the end of the nineteenth century it is called “Madonna Addolorata” or “Madonna dei Sette Dolori”. In the 1930s, it is called “Mater Dolorosa”.

Inhabitants registered^[6]

Foreigners living in Maretto on 1 January 2015 are 20 and represent 5.1% of the resident population. The nationalities most represented by their percentage of the total living foreign population were:

• Romania 17 (85.00%)
• Moldova 1 (5.00%)
• Rwanda 1 (5.00%)
• Republic of Congo 1 (5.00%)