The towers and palaces of the Roero in Asti are medieval buildings located in the San Martino-San Rocco district, in the area between Piazza San Giuseppe, Via Roero, Via Quintino Sella and Piazza San Martino. The Roero or "Rotari", one of the major families of the nobilityVergano 1953–1957, Vol 2, p. 174. belonging to the houses of Asti, began to occupy the area at the beginning of the 13th century and, as a result of the increase in their profits obtained from trade and pawn money lending, they exponentially increased the colonization of the area. By the end of the 13th century, the Municipality of Asti, through the financing of the mercantile families was able to weave a fruitful network of alliances and trade agreements. The league that the municipality formed with Pavia, Genoa, and the Marquisate of Saluzzo led to the defeat of the Angevin armyAldo di Ricaldone, Annali del Monferrato (951–1708). Roma 1987, p. 265 and enabled it to dominate over most of south-central Piedmont. The increase in Asti's political clout over Piedmont consequently led to a demographic and urban increase in the city of Asti throughout the 14th century. The seventeenth-century Laurus map shows how many strongholds and towers there still were in the city's built-up area and only leaves one to speculate what the actual urban layout was during the period of maximum fourteenth-century expansion.Peyrot A., Asti e l'Astigiano, vedute e piante dal XIV al XIX secolo, Turin 1987. (Reproduction of a copper engraving by Jacopo Lauro called "Asti, Nobilissima città del Piemonte 1639" from Guido Antonio Malabaila's book, Compendio historiale della città d'Asti. Roma 1638), p. 54
The density of the Roero dwellings present in the San Martino area also increased in proportion to the influence and expansion of the family. The Roero's power became such that in the 14th century they hosted Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg. At the end of his stay, Arrigo of Dantesque fameDante Alighieri, Inferno – Canto VI as a sign of gratitude bestowed certain privileges that allowed the Contrada to be considered a free and inviolable territory with respect to the other city districts, assuming a connotation of extraterritoriality.Bera 2004, p. 824 Even under Emperor Charles V, the family had special privileges. It was granted the right of asylum in one of their palaces in the contrada.Camerana 1999, p. 291
The area for centuries was referred to as Contrada Roera, and the toponym remained until the late 19th century.
The ward of San Martino In the communal period, the shift from the commercial activity of goods to that of money led in Asti to a centralization of wealth around a limited group of families (the casane) that ended up characterizing and changing the urban fabric of the city as well.
These family groups organized themselves into subsystems consisting of fortified houses, connected by curtain walls and protected by towers, to constitute a larger urban whole, gravitating on the wards, within which the power of a specific family group and its allies held sway.Gabrielli 1976, p. 212
The construction of towers also became the visual yardstick of the "social" rise of the household. They were certainly useful for defense, but they were mainly used to demonstrate economic prosperity and to self-celebrate one's political clout.Bera 2004, p. 342
The Roero settled in the San Martino district, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. In fact, still in the statutes of 1379, the ward, referring to the ancient form urbis of the civitas, was considered as one of the two centers of aggregation of the ancient Roman city.Renato Bordone, Città e territorio nell'alto medioevo. La società astigiana dal dominio dei Franchi all'affermazione comunale. Biblioteca Storica Subalpina, Turin 1980, p. 190. Located southwest of the city, the ward developed around some urban environments, military and socio-religious points of aggregation, present in that area: the gate of San Martino, the church of Sant'Ilario and the church of San Martino.
St. Martin's Gate, located at the outlet between Grassi Street and XX Settembre Street, in the southern part of the city, stood next to the present church of St. Roch.
The gate, by jurisdiction was divided into a number of contrade or vicinie with mainly aristocratic connotations:Comitato Palio Rione S. Martino / S. Rocco. Il Borgo San Martino San Rocco nella storia di Asti. Ed. Comitato Palio SMSR, Asti, 1995
a first vicinia comprising part of the contrada of San Sisto, which took its name from the church of the same name present as early as 886 on the ancient Roman decumanus at the level of the present-day Piazza Roma;Gabotto F., Le più antiche carte dell'archivio capitolare di Asti (Corpus Chart. Italiae XIX). Pinerolo Chiantore-Mascarelli 1904, doc. 16 a contrada formed since the 13th century by part of the dwellings of the powerful Guelph Solaro family; the contrada Roera, comprising precisely the dwellings of the Roeros in the area of the church and the gate of San Martino.Passing through the San Martino gate, one reached the wall demarcation ditch, formed by the ancient canal, which was the town's first irrigation system and also an important river access for goods that could reach the Tanaro River from there. From there on, as far as the Borbore River, stretched the territory of the hamlet of San Martino, abounding in dyers' and tanners' stores, which, in contrast to the ward, had a strong popular connotation.
The contrata Rotariorum The contrada Roera began to form in the 13th century. The first Roero families began to move from the area of Porta Vivarii di San Paolo into the district of Porta di San Martino, settling mainly along the axis of today's Via Roero.
The houses of the Roero family were arranged starting from the Porta di San Martino along the entire contrada, up to near the contrada maestra (today's Corso Alfieri) on the border with the properties of the Re family.
By the beginning of the 14th century the family's move to the San Martino area was practically complete.
The typology of the dwellings resumed the classic medieval house-fortress, consisting of the noble residence, the tower, the outhouse, the garden and the inner vegetable garden.
These buildings, independent of each other, were provided with a curtain wall when in the 13th century, with the intensification of struggles between the Guelph and Ghibelline parties,Guglielmo Ventura, in Chapter IV of his Memoriale referring to the year 1271, discusses the clashes between the Guelph faction of the Solaro and the Ghibelline faction of the Guttuari that led to the death and wounding of several Asti nobles. In 1272, the Astians stipulated a truce that lasted until 1300. Thereafter, clashes resumed and continued unrest forced the citizens of Asti to seek protection from the emperor (Gorrini G., Il comune astigiano e la sua storiografia. Florence, Ademollo & c., 1884, p. 148). there arose the need to fortify and protect properties.
During this period, Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg was hosted for more than a month in the house of Tommaso di Aicardo Roero,M.del Prete, L'aristocrazia bancaria astigiana. Vicende politiche ed economiche della famiglia Roero fino al 1330, dissertation, academic year 1991–1992. a powerful Ghibelline leader. The emperor, grateful to the Roero for the hospitality he received, granted the Asti family certain privileges, among which were to inhibit the transit of funeral processions, forbid the construction of prisons in their district, grant pardons each year to three executioners, and to consider their palace an inviolable place of asylum for every person.Gabiani 1906
This gave the area a status of "extraterritoriality," at that time the exclusive privilege of religious structures.Bera 2004
Roero palaces in San Martino square
The Roero complex of Monteu
In 1299, a branch of the Roero family was invested by the bishop of Asti, Blessed Guido da Valperga,G. Visconti, Diocesi di Asti e Istituti di vita religiosi, Asti 2006, p. 119. with the places of Monteu, Santo Stefano Belbo and Castagnito.Bordone 2001, p. 132
The palace located in Piazza San Martino at the corner of Via Roero was purchased by the family around the 14th century. It is the most representative palace of the contrada. Stefano Giuseppe Incisa in the 19th century considered it one of the best-preserved medieval palaces in the city.Stefano Giuseppe Incisa, Giornale d'Asti, vol. 40, p. 148
The original core of the complex consists of three buildings from the mid-13th century, which originally had their entrance on the alley that separated them from the church of San Martino, once with the facade facing the palaces to create a small square.Incisa 1974, pp. 102–103
Towards the end of the 13th century, the construction of the central tower, the true connecting point of the surrounding buildings, took place.
The entire block was raised with the construction of two floors each comprising three red-and-white biforas with "concave archivolt", typical of Asti architecture, creating a typical 14th-century palatium.
The 7.50-meter tower belongs to the "second period."
Once eight stories high, it presents bricks of lighter coloring at the corners, typical of 13th-century Asti architecture.
The ground floor still has a rib vault with cylindrical ogives that run toward the center, where there is a keystone in the form of a rose window.
Pictorial decorations embellish the tower, depicting the Roero coat of arms,The coat of arms of the Roero family of Asti was: a red shield with three silver wheels. The crest featured a wild man, armed with a club. On the cartouche the motto: A BON RENDRE, with variants: A BIEN RENDRE or A BUEN RENDRE () and the top features three bands of small arches ending in merlons.
In the Napoleonic period, the palace became the seat of the prefecture with the prefect's quarters. In 1804, the palace welcomed Pope Pius VII during his journey to France to crown Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the French.Malfatto 1982, p. 248
In 1814 the tower was lowered to its present height.
Roero Palace of Settime and Mombarone On the western side of Piazza San Martino is the imposing 18th-century palace that continues throughout the block, following Via Malabayla to the junction of Via Asinari.
Gabiani places the core of the palace among the city's best 13th-century fortified houses.
In reality, the eighteenth-century construction is the result of a number of amalgamations over the centuries.Bera 2004, p. 844
Falling plasterwork and deterioration that occurred in the last quarter of the 20th century revealed that there were as many as seven building bodies in the palace area.
In the 16th century, the block appeared to be divided into two large properties: the westernmost, toward Via Asinari, consisting of a building made up of bodies V, VI, VII, owned by the Mombarone lineage; the easternmost, toward Piazza San Martino, belonged to the Settime branch and consisted of the other buildings.
The buildings of the two estates, with the unification of the two families into a single lineage called "di Settime e Mombarone," were merged in the 18th century into a single building, not affecting the structural layout, but building externally a single Baroque facade facing San Martino Square.
In the 18th century, ownership passed to the nobleman Antonio Gaspare Guidobono Cavalchini, a court gentleman of the king of Sardinia, who by marrying Baroness Felicita Maria Roero assumed the title of Roero di San Severino.Malfatto 1982, p. 249
The palace eventually passed to the Pogliani family and in the early 20th century was used as the seat of the sub-prefecture and Public Security offices.
Roero palaces on Via Roero
Roero palace and tower of Monticello and Piea