San Martino Alfieri: sights, history and trails

The coat of arms of San Martino Alfieri was granted by royal decree of 25 September 1886, when the Municipality still had the old name of San Martino al Tanaro.^[4]

The gonfalone is a blue and red drape party.

Small hamlet that begins after the sports field where every year La sagra del barbera takes place. This hamlet includes the small church of San Giuseppe where every evening the villages meet to chat at the moonlight. In addition, every year there is a rosary accompanied by a refreshment and the following morning a Mass. If you continue on a dirt road at the end of the village you reach the Tanaro River.

Eight chapels located in the hamlets Marelli, Firano, Pero, Quaglia and Saracchi form an ideal cross-country trail that winds through the Tanaro River and the Borbore stream, crossing hills cultivated with vines, woods and small meadow alleys.

Along the director of Govone there is the hamlet Marelli that takes its name from the family of the same name Marello. This portion of the territory was the ancient connection of the lands of the fiefs of the Solaro di San Martino and Govone. The place is remembered because it gave birth to St. Joseph Marello (1844-1895), who lived here childhood until the transfer of the family to Turin. The house is still existing today, even if it was transformed by casket to the manor house.

Coming out of the village, in the direction of Antignano, you can see the Saracchi hamlet, in the past belonging to the municipality of Antignano, where is Palazzo Garibaldi. The building was built by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who lived there for some time, after marrying Francesca Armosino, his last wife, native to this hamlet.

The castle, built from 1696 to 1721 on the design of Antonio Bertola, preserves the original furniture of the rooms. The current construction is on the opposite height to that where the reception was formed.
18th century building surrounded by large secular trees offers a valuable Orangérie and, today, you can admire the result of an intervention requested in 1815 by the Marquis Carlo Emanuele Alfieri di Sostegno by Xavier Kurten, a German landscape architect who had the task to transform the formal garden into a park according to the new romantic English taste, allowing the Piemonte to approach the local culture to European tastes in which romanticism is a dominant phenomenon and the taste for the art of gardens its direct manifestation. He expanded the park using the collaboration of architect Ernesto Melano already known in the village. To these we also owe the urban planning and the project of a new parish church and the town house.
Those who are lucky enough to visit the castle of San Martino cannot help but stop in front of the many memories of its illustrious owners and eminent people with whom they had relations of kinship, friendship, business; they are busted, portraits, prints, manuscripts that allow to reconstruct a whole world that is not forgotten, because in it sinks the roots that present.

The building was built from 1829 to 1833, replacing the previous one, no longer suitable for the needs of the population and now billy, which was near the southern side of the castle of Alfieri.
For interest of the Marquis Carlo Emanuele Alfieri, the design was entrusted to the architect Ernesto Melano. Reached the agreement between the parties, it was possible to proceed to demolition of the old parish church, which was decoded on 9 June 1829 with the transfer of the SS. Sacramento in the Brotherhood.
The Gazzetta Piemontese On December 24, 1829, he reported the initiative as "...the parish church of San Martino di Govone, placed on a summit far from the big part of the village, makes it desirable for that population to see it transported to the floor, for the greater happiness to go there, maximum in the rough season. Mr. Marchese Carlo Emanuele Alfieri of Support, owner of the Castle of that place, whose religious piety is united with a generous and beneficial heart, according to the votes of those inhabitants, determined to build at his expense a new parish church on the site the most welcoming. M. putting mind to the manifest utility that redefines pro of the Commune to send and effect the beneficial division of the Marquis, applauded to the magnanimous resolution of the noble Character and placed the seal with his sovereign approval".
The new church was consecrated on June 23, 1833 by Bishop Lobetti under the title of San Carlo Borromeo, in memory of the ancient kinship between the family of the Saint and the house of the Alfieri. Memorabilia were the festivities and great the contest of the population.
The building, in neoclassical style, is characterized by a grandiose pronao from the Doric columns, reminiscent of those of the Pantheon of Rome. Inside there is a valuable triptych of the Defendente Ferrari school. The strict architecture of the engineer Cavaliere Ernesto Melano had foreseen the construction of three altars, the major of which is marble up, and a harmonious structure such as the vaulted drawers and the rich frieze below.
The church festival is an example of a road trip and is divided into a space that acts as an entrance to the reception and another on which the Town Hall faces. The roadside festival is important for its location on the pass between the Borbore Valley and the Tanaro Valley.

In 1572 a bishop's decree approved the construction of an oratory with altar dedicated to San Martino as the seat of the Society of lay disciplines. The construction works lasted from 1696 to 1721, by architect Antonio Bertola. The Church of Santissima Annunziata, located near the Castle, became the seat of the Brotherhood of Battuti. It had its own economic resources with which it carried out important restoration works such as the wooden choir and the organ in the second half of the eighteenth century and the bell in 1885.
From the beginning of the 20th century, the church was closed for a few decades and was only officiated on the occasion of the festivities. He then had a new destination as a parish hall and requested numerous restoration and adaptation.
The facade is characterized by a simple rose window frescoed with the image of San Martino.
The building, now decomposed, has been used as a multipurpose room and used for demonstrations by the municipal administration and Pro Loco.

Worthy of note is the simple house built by Giuseppe Garibaldi in Saracchi, birthplace of his wife Francesca Armosino.
A tombstone commemorates today that gesture of gratitude and gratitude towards her who, before being her legitimate wife, had been at his side by giving him the three sons, Clelia, Teresita and Manlio.

The lower part of the accommodation, which overlooks the main road through the mural that surrounds the reception itself, houses a beautiful nineteenth century exedra with fountain coeva, while on the square back to the parish church, next to the Town Hall, another beautiful fountain, with more modern taste, contributes to embellish a corner of the village.

The "Bottega del vino" is dedicated to Piedmontese wines and the promotion of the territory. It has the task of enhancing and promoting this important agricultural and cultural heritage, linked to the deepest traditions of these hills, but also open to technical-scientific innovation. It is located at the premises of municipal property, on the ground floor of the Palazzo Comunale; the rooms were completely renovated and consist of a tasting-exhibition room, a warehouse and a bathroom equipped for disabled. In its new headquarters it offers the best of food and wine culture.

The Pro Loco di San Martino Alfieri is a splendid reality that takes place in 1996; for the truth it is the re-edition of a group, very active in the early eighties, which participated in the major events at the provincial level. The main purpose is cultural and tourist development aimed primarily at the valorization of local productions in favor of those companies, and are no longer many, than our land have made their reason for life.
The main activity of Pro Loco is the organization, especially in summer, of the main events of the country. But it is at the table that Pro Loco can best enhance its hospitality skills, making available to visitors its products and especially quality wines of local producers. Among the various specialties, the dishes offered more frequently are agnolotti to the sauce of meat and the large mixed boil with bagpipe.

The "Sagra del Barbera" is the main festival of the country, held every year between the second and third decade of July. A theatrical show in openness, a great stand gastronomic, with traditional Piedmont specialties and local wines, the evenings of music and dances on stake for all ages and a conclusive pyrotechnic show are the characteristic elements now well established of the event.

Every year, indicating between the months of May and June, is always very welcome the event called "In the middle of the cam... of our vineyards", food and wine walk among the rolling hills of Asti overlooking the Tanaro, with stops at panoramic points of absolute beauty and originality. The walk includes stops at refreshment points, where entertainment will be offered with the re-proposal of living paintings of rural life, with tasting of local gastronomic products (agnolotti, boiled meat, cured meats, cheeses and Monferrato appetizers) combined with prestigious local wines. The event attracts the curiosity of many Italian and foreign tourists.

San Martino Alfieri, after having been part of the Union of Common Hill Communities "Colline Alfieri", from 1 January 2016 joined the Union of Common Hill Communities "Castelli tra Roero e Monferrato".

In the last hundred years, since 1921, the resident population has halved.

Inhabitants registered^[7]