Montaldo Roero is one of the hilltop villages of the Rocche and is a place of ancient settlements, starting with the enigmatic name “Podium Rote”, which attests to a probable remote solar cult in the area. In Roman times we find some “funds” and an altar dedicated to the sources, today support for the font in the parish of the Annunciation.
Montaldo is mentioned for the first time in a document of 1153, with which Pope Eugene III donated the town to the church of Asti. The fiefdom was ruled by the lords “de Montaldo”, but in 1374 the bishop of Asti ceded all the lordship to Guglielmo Roero, and Montaldo thus becoming “Mons Altus Rotarianum”. Over two centuries, the descendants of the Roero gradually lost all the fiefdom. From this moment on, Montaldo passed into the hands of numerous families, without any being able to possess all the lordship and to remain in a lasting way.
WHAT TO SEE
MEDIEVAL CYLINDRICAL TOWER
Emblem of the town, it is an imposing building about thirty meters high and with a diameter greater than eight and a half meters, built by the Roero family around 1374 next to an older castle that had belonged to the “de Montaldo”, castellans of the bishop of Asti, disappeared in the 18th century.
PARISH CHURCH SS. ANNUNZIATA
It maintains strong references to Romanesque outside. The suggestive interior, with a basilica plan and three naves, was brought back to the original forms of the 14th century Gothic in 1925. The coeval bell tower and the perimeter walls are characterized by pointed openings, by strong buttresses and by top frames in brick.
BRIDGE ON THE ROCKS
Long driveway bridge that cuts the ravine in half which opens from the town towards the Rocche.