Castle of Savignone, Savignone, Liguria, Italy, Europe
The castle of Savignone, currently in ruins, was once a fortress and manor house and the subject of battles and sieges. It is also a place of legends. Is stuck on a rock pudding - called Savignone Conglomerate - which dominates from a height of 150 meters above the town of Savignone, in the upper valley Scrivia. Its surrounding wall is strengthened to the south from the tower or semicircular rampart and naturally defended on the other side from the precipice. The tower located at the southern end, is massive, with a plant in horseshoe, ie straight inward and outward, circular walls. Partially intact in close-ups outside, where it opens a window on the top floor and a gunboat on the floor of the basement. This type fitted to support the assault of the first guns was similar to that of the four towers that flanked the nearby castle of Montoggio, in the restructuring of the latter by Sinibaldo Fieschi. In that case it was four corner towers, from the outside perimeter to curvilinear. Ways were taken from the latest innovations in Genoa those fortresses of the Bridle and Castelletto, in the fifteenth century. Inside this tower still has a stretch of scale and the remains of the hollows of the chimneys to first and second floors. The castle is built on two levels elevation, according to the embankment of the bastion and the underground rooms or basements connected to it, using the shelf of rock on which it stands. Above the center of the city walls is the courtyard, which corresponded to the square discovery where the soldiers gathered. It is accessed by a narrow staircase that comes from underground. In the northern part of the castle are the remains of the old house, with large windows at high altitude.
The underground is excavated in the pudding, and are divided into a large great room that was reserved for soldiers, closed on two sides by the massive wall perimeter, and a water cistern.
Last owners were the Marquis of Crosa Vergagni, heirs Fieschi marriage of Nicholas and Carlotta Fieschi, today the castle is propirietà municipal. On the south side is the tower, built on two levels; north the remains of the dwelling elegant, fitted to a great height of small windows; at the center, what remains of a pitch for the soldiers, reached via a narrow staircase coming from the basement. Today the castle is still in ruins; early summer 2013, the Municipality of Savignone started work for the safety and functional reuse of the castle; the restoration, which affects the vaulted room entrance, the court and the tower horseshoe, is intended not only to safeguard what remains of the ruin, both from the town and from that structure, but also redevelop the building making it to the same time suitable to host events, exhibitions and events, giving back to the citizens the symbol of the City. Distanced Guglielmo Spinola, Visconti Savignone swear allegiance to Genoa, on 7 May 1242. A few years later there is a change to the Fieschi, who own the castle for a longer period compared to all the other families. They are in possession of the castle and village of Savignone. The second was composed of houses who surrounded the central square; it was at a monastery monastic dependent Bishop of Lodi and not that of Tortona in this period becomes secondary. The dispute between the Bishops of Tortona and Lodi dated back to the appointment of Pope Martin I in June 883 in Lodi, ribatiga from Olrico, bishop of Milan, in December 1125, according to which the bishop of Lodi, Opizzone, went personally in monastery. Another bishop of Milan, as reported by Robaldo collections Gabotto and Lege reconfirmed that property against the demands of the bishop of Tortona. The complex was provided with a court on which overlooked the monks' cells, and that could accommodate 30 people and 40 horses. The convent was headed by a prior for the church, and for the hospital by another prelate, which happens to be based on the Ferreto, by an act of 16 November 1191, a certain Tedisio. Near the village was the chapel of St. Rocco. To these were added the villas scattered settlements, another hospital in Vallecalda on the passage of the street for the Oltregiogo passing through the imperial fiefs, which it crossed the Apennines to the current pace of Our Lady of Victory. This position, closing the road for Oltregiogo Genovese, who was passing through the Imperial Feud, Savignone was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a strategic role, and many of his villagers moved to Genoa activating various businesses.