The name “Magliano” derives from the personal name Manlius, nobleman of the important Roman family of Quinto ManlioSevero, who almost certainly owned these (these) lands.
Magliano Alfieri, located 328 meters above sea level on a sort of natural lookout over the Tanaro valley and the Langa hills that face it, presents the most interesting buildings in the historic concentric of Magliano Alto.
The Castle, a grandiose residence built in the seventeenth century by the Alfieri, houses two museums open to the public. Situated in a suggestive position, it was a place of stay for the young Vittorio Alfieri, destined to become one of the greatest Italian tragic poets. It is surrounded by wide panoramic views and a well-kept garden, and is a stop on the Romantic Road of the Langhe and Roero.
HISTORY BITES
On the “fundus Mallianus”, from which the town took its name, it
developed a short distance from a ford on the Tanaro river, perhaps the most
important settlement between the two Roman cities of Asti and Alba, along the
“strata” that connected them. Copious finds of the period have been
found in several places in the area of the present hamlet of Sant’Antonio.
Heir to the Roman settlement at the bottom of the valley (first abandoned for the barbarian incursions, then for the general insecurity between the ninth and tenth centuries), the hilltop settlement was formed in these two centuries, under the protection of the castle (already mentioned in 996 ). In 1237 the bishop of Asti obtained from CorradoMagliano a declaration of subjection to his Church, granting the year after the investiture to the “de Maliano”.
In the middle of the century the fief with the castle was purchased by the noble Alfieri family from Asti, who kept them until their extinction in 1797. In the seventeenth century the dominion over the Magliano area belonged to the Savoy, but the Catalan Alfieri general of the infantry Savoy, built over the century, on the site of the medieval fortress, a sumptuous Baroque residence.
WHAT TO SEE
The Castle and its two museums.
The Museum of plaster ceilings and popular traditions.
Plaster ceilings were widespread mainly in peasant houses, for mainly economic reasons, given the considerable presence of quarries in this area. The modest rural houses thus took on a touch of simple elegance thanks to the white attics which, if on the one hand stylistically enriched the dwelling, on the other had an insulating function and maintained the warmth in the rooms.
The museum displays 109 decorative motifs, the oldest of which bears the date of 1580. They are flanked by rooms dedicated to the methods of extracting the material and the systems of use.
“Theatre of the landscape” museum.
Interactive and multimedia museum inaugurated in 2015, and dedicated to the hilly and fluvial landscape of the Langa and Roero. Five thematic areas: memory, hills, river, stone, conscience.
The setting allows the visitor to “immerse” himself in the landscape by making different time courses: for example, he will be able to navigate the Tanaro in a scenario of the early twentieth century, when the river was populated by fishermen, ferrymen and hemp macerators, walking among the rows of a vineyard to understand its transformations over time, or to go into the future, to see the effects that choices in the economic, production and construction fields can have on the territory, without neglecting the recent period marked by profound and often disruptive transformations.