Spigno Monferrato: sights, history and trails

Alberto Del Carretto with act of 3 February 1300 bought from the Marchesi di Ponzone (Tommaso, Enrico and Manfredino) two thirds of the Spigno district: that is Merana, Serole, Rocchetta^[6] And Malvicino. Alberto the widow Tubirgia Fieschi, guardian of his son Francesco, in 1314 sold the territories purchased by his husband to Giacomo Del Carretto, son of Novello's first marquis, Enrico. He completed the possession of Spigno's commission by purchasing in 1332 the other third of territory from the marquises of Ponzone (Raimondo, Oddino and Corradino).

Manfredo, the fifth son of Giacomo, consolidated the possession of Spigno, leaving his son Francesco as chief of the lords of Spigno, Merana, Malvicino and part of the castle of Dego but always under the dominion of the Republic of Genoa from which the lords of Spigno continued to take the investment until 1419, when the Genoese ceded to the Marquis Giovanni Giacomo del Monferrato, just succeeded to the father Theodor II, all the rights to the lands on this side of the Giovi with the agreement that no Genoese bandit could find asylum there.

The lords of Spigno became so vassals of marquises of Monferrato, but the emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg continued to consider himself lord of all those lands and, since Giangiacomo marquis of Monferrato had participated in the anti-Visconti Ghibelline League of Venice and Florence in 1426, Sigismondo appointed the Duke of Milan as his imperial vicar and also forced the lords of Spigno to take the investiture from him.

In 1467 Amedeo IX of Savoia took to the Marquis of Monferrato the lands of Spigno and Cremolino, which he returned through the interposition of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan

In 1469 William VIII, Marquis of Monferrato granted the Abbey of San Quintino di Spigno the privilege of immunity for the men of his fiefs (Piana, Cagna, Giusvalla and Lodisio).

The Marquis Tommaso Del Carretto, the lordship of Spigno was donated to Luigi Asinari son of Mark and Catherine, sister of Thomas, with two successive investitures given by King Philip II of Spain and the Duke of Milan^[7].

To Luigi succeeded his son Marco Antonio^[8], who took the investiture from the Ducal Chamber of Milan in 1612 and another in 1615 from King Philip III of Spain, who erected the Spigno fiefdom into a marquisate.

Federico, successor to Marco Antonio, was a restless man who had spent his youth in military service wanted to treat his subjects and neighbors to the military, and his enterprises attracted the Savoy who destroyed the castle. Frederick designed the reconstruction in 1669 and imposed for this reason contributions to his subjects who opposed it. It includes vexation and violence. For his excesses, the Marquis was proscribed and deprived of the fiefs which remained in the ducal chamber of Milan that, after Frederick's death, invested his adopted son Lelio Invrea, a Genoese nobleman.

In 1687 Lelio Invrea Asinari Del Carretto, heir without offspring, passed the marquisate to his brother Ippolito reserve the fruit to life^[9].

Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg called to the imperial fisco the Marquisate of Spigno and in 1724 sold it to King Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy for the sum of 350 000 guilders.

In 1729 in the neighboring Acqui Terme Regies were established schools of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and theology. The chair of surgery (Vincenzo Malacarne), notary and rash (Luigi Chiabrera and then Benvenuto Borelli) were opened.

In 1731 the feud passed to Countess Anna Canalis of Cumiana, widow Novarina of San Sebastiano, wife morganatica of the abdicate king, and in 1769 to Pietro Novarina, his son.

From 1789 to 1814 Spigno, like all the Piemonte, he remained under the French administration.

In 1918 there died the general Count Paolo Spingardi (very tied to the country), General Commander of the Carabinieri, Minister of War during the Libyan War and in the years before the First World War.

• Sant'Emerenziana, 23 January

From the time of Barbarossa, Spigno enjoyed the privilege of governing himself according to his own Statutes. As far as under the lordship of Genoa and then the Monferrato, it was always considered an imperial dominion governed by the Ducal Chamber of Milan and in the municipal archives there is documentation of a trip made by representatives of the council to go the Imperial House sitting in Vienna. The territory was erected into a Marquisate in 1615 by Philip III of Spain and in 1724 it was sold to Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy by Emperor Charles VI.

He remained unscathed by the great plague of 1630 and the population vowed to carry out every year, on January 20, a procession of thanksgiving. In 1669 Federico Asinari, who because of his intemperance had undergone the destruction of the castle by the hands of the nearby Savoy, claimed that the population was charged with Corvées necessary for reconstruction, but there were no threats, prisons, murders.

Then the Marquis hired and hid a gang of mercenaries in the village.Pharaohs according to the German etymology), that they should have infierire on the inhabitants on the day of the procession. The insidia was discovered, the suspended procession, and the people rose up on the day of St. Emerenziana who since then became a symbolic feast for Spigno.

The episode saw two Viazzi opposites: Sarneto Viazzi di Villa Rocchetta, Councillor of the Magnificent Community of Spigno, and Ortensio Viazzi (man-at-arms of the Viazzi family of Ponzone) in the Marquis's pay Asinari as commander of the masnadiers. Of Ortensio di Ponzone (and not of the Rocchetta as it says a popular tale) there is a beautiful portrait preserved by descendants. Of Sarneto (do not mention this name) the current descendant cav. Gianni Viazzi was awarded the honorary citizenship of Spigno with Delibera del Consiglio Comunale of 30 July 1981 for personal benemerences and in recognition of the past merits of the family that in direct ascenders, between 1580 and 1744, contributed to the civil and religious life of the Community of Spigno Monferrato, he actively and permanently participated in the Council decurional and conquered the municipal nobility in the seventeenth century.

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

• 
  The Parish Church of Rocchetta Spigno
• 
  Madonna del Rosario. Painted 1667 at the highest altar of the Parish of Rocchetta

• G. Bio- Antiquities and prerogatives of Acquisition, Turin 1818;
• G. Lavezzari History of Acqui 1878;
• - Savio, Monument aquensia 1967);
• C. Respondence On the day of Sant'Emerenziana there is a curious episode. Don Rodrigo goes to Spigno in the La Stampa - Edition of Alessandria 24/1/1980