Description

Village of Cisterna d’Asti

The history of Cisterna d’Asti is more nebulous and possibly bloodier than that of Canale, which lays just 6 Km downhill on the valley floor. The first settlers came to where Cisterna is today around the year 1,000 B.C. or earlier (nobody really knows where they came from nor when). Form that time until the beginning of the 10th Century A.D, total blank, no news, no papers, and no deed of sales: Nothing! What we know for certain is that the first version of the Castle was erected between the years 911 to 1200 A.D., the darkest of medieval times, as a fortress not a residence. We can therefore hypothesize that whoever built this magnificent structure was more concerned about safety then comfort. Unfortunately, here again, historical records  are silent on ownership, skirmishes or wars until a little later when they show that Cisterna, its castle and its surroundings were purchased (inherited, granted the use of, or stolen) by the Bishop of Asti, a powerful figure in those days.
From then on village, castle and land changed hands a number of time: from the Bishop to the City of Asti, from the City of Asti to the Bishop of Asti, from The Bishop of Asti to Mr. Roero, the very banker which founded Canale, then from him to the City of Asti  (again! All this smells of  speculation, possibly legal, certainly blessed by the holy church). But when the City of Asti, after having sold Cisterna to the Squires of Gorzano, a few years later went to war with them, won the war, and repossessed what they had legally sold not ten years earlier, speculation became grand theft. It is also said, although not proven so this could only be gossip, that by 1274, when Bishop, City and Bankers, where all done with buying-selling-going to war with, well , that the Bishop of Asti, the City of Asti and the Roero family, all became richer and that the Gorzano’s, those who survived, poorer.
From 1274 onward, the property and surroundings where  again bought and sold a number of times , until the Castle of Cisterna became the property of .. Cisterna.  Not needing the fortress any longer to host the citizen of Cisterna  in times of war, the Castle became a museum in 1980.
Today Cisterna enjoys balmy weather, as it did back in time, no fog either, a beautiful and well maintained Castle which gifts Camomplin of a breathtaking view in the evenings, three restaurants, one post office, one small corner store and a bakery: Cisterna inhabitants (1285 of them in 2013) travel to Canale for their shopping forays.

(by Eaglebird)