Montegioco: sights, history and trails

The name means Monthly, in fact the historic town is located on top of a cone-shaped mound with a truncated top.^[4]

Cited in 1152 for the first time, it was a locality of the district Tortona, as reported in the city statutes (14th century). In 1305 the castle of Montegioco was under the control of Pietro Opizzone. In 1406 it suffered serious damage from the Guelphs fighting against the Ghibelline party of the Viscontis, supported by the Opizzones. There is no trace left of its structures. In the 1541 census there were 22 inhabitants, many of whom were farmers belonging to the noble Antonio Francesco Opizzone. In 1576 the inhabitants of the parish had already risen to 200. The small community, upon payment of a large sum to the Ducal Chamber, avoided being enfeoffed to Nicolò Busseti in 1647, but later renounced its autonomy and was enfeoffed to the brothers Biagio Gaetano and Carlo Alessandro, raising it to a marquisate from 22 September 1689 to which the lordship of Casasco (1698), then with the title of marquisate in 1773, Cerreto Grue (1693), Corneliasca (1698), Montebore, Oliva, Rocca del Grue, Montebello, Berzano di Tortona (1733). The Bussettis also received imperial investiture for the villages of Segagliate, Palazzo Bussetti and Pragasso. In 1798 a republican municipality was established. In the royal decree of 1818 the municipality of Montegioco was included in the mandate of Volpedo.

In the village of Palazzo was built in the first half of the 17th century, a noble residence by the Busseti di Tortona, equipped with extensive rustic houses and a mill. Currently the building is renovated in the 20th century with the facades of a castle surmounted by a crenellated tower and with the edges of the construction decorated by Bertesche, recently restored. Only a small sailing bell tower bears witness to the sixteenth-century origins of the building. Aldial good of the Busseti, to their extinction in 1769 with Abbot Carlo, he was owned by Emilio Signoris-Busseti (named in 1810 by Emperor Napoleon I Baron of Montegioco), while after the 1817, the year of his death, remained at the widow Sofia Valesa and her daughter Eugenia Signoris married Guasco di Bisio, who in 1881 he sold it to Countess Luigia Veglio of Castelletto. From the 1899 to the 1933 was the property of the Countess “Pepita” Franzini Ribaldi, daughter of Countess Veglio, and after the heirs of Bernard of Palermo owners until the years ’60 last century.

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

Montegioco had a football team, the U.S. Montegioco,^[9] that debuted in the provincial championship of Terza Category in the season 1984-85,^[10] to military in the First Category for three seasons, since 1995^[11] 1998. The team ceased its activity at the end of 2014-15 season.