Take a preview walk in what will be the new Saluzzo park in the so-called “Ariaudo vineyard”which will be open to the public in autumn, after the end of the recovery and redevelopment works of the former Carmelite complex in via Valoria.
The park, with an extension of almost three hectares, is identified as “the Vegetable Garden of the Marquises of Saluzzo”. Purchased by the Municipality in 2020, it has maintained its original conformation and the agronomic evidence of its original use. “It is a large green space that contains a piece of the almost thousand-year history of Saluzzo”.
During the opening of the two days, the large meadow under Castiglia, enclosed by original medieval walls, revealed many curiosities linked to its history, not always known by the people of Saluzzo.
The landscape agronomist Aldo Molinengo he collected them in his latest editorial work “The garden of Castile and the ancient house of the greengrocer of the marquises of Saluzzo” (published by Mirabolano), the result of his studies and research and accompanied by photographs combined with historical documents.
In the Middle Ages, the extensive lawn represented the land used to grow food plants such as vegetables and fruit trees for the courtyard.
The garden mentioned in a document from 1481, but which could be contemporary with the construction of the castle started in 1270 by Thomas I, finds a figurative representation in the painting by Pasquale Oddone, kept in the Rosary chapel of the nearby church of San Giovanni. A votive painting, writes Molinengo, commissioned in 1535 as thanks from the city for having resisted the siege in 1487 by Charles I of Savoy.
“ANDd is almost as if it were an image of today”. Just as its conformation is visualized in the print of the Theatrum Sabaudiae of 1682. It appears surrounded by medieval walls, the same ones that it now preserves, of which the wall that runs along via Valoria, with the adjoining medieval tower, has been renovated according to the convention with the Municipality, as urbanization work of the private construction site, relating to the former property of the Carmelites. Recovery that has returned an evocative, new corner of the city.
Over the centuries the plot of land underwent a long series of changes of ownership with the replacement of fields, meadows and vineyards by the various types of crops that were grown in the Marquisate.
The last step occurred in 1971, Molinengo continues, when Giuseppe Ariaudo from Saluzzo acquired the area delimited by the walls which took the name of Ariaudo vineyard, being then cultivated with vine plants, which were then uprooted and the area transformed into meadow stable, with oak trees arranged in rows.
“LThe most dated medieval trace of the castle garden remains the historic building located centrally between two of its terraces”. It is today in a very precarious state of conservation and has re-emerged, after the cleaning works of the area, having previously been completely covered by vegetation.
At the base, a pool of spring water, which is why it was identified as a drinking source for animals used during the Marquisate. “Fanointing which he certainly had – underlines the author – but which was not the pre-eminent feature of the ancient building. According to the scholar, in fact, it was a surveillance shed for the entire land, but above all for surveillance of the vegetable garden to avoid theft of the products: vegetables, but also fruit.
Two windows on each side on the upper floor of the building (there were 8 in total) allowed constant 360 degree control and the large fireplace of which signs of the structure remain “they confirm it was the permanent home of the greengrocer and his family who lived in a single room. Today the building remains an important historical and cultural sign of the landscape even if it makes you smile to think of it as a building to prevent or defend against the theft of some apples or vegetables”.
“THEThe merit of this ciabot, probably the oldest made of masonry not only in the Saluzzo area, is that it has remained a witness to the history of Saluzzo and the agriculture and customs of the past”.
