The castle

The castle of Costigliole is the landmark of the city it overlooks. Quadrangular in shape and with four round towers. The four sides, in differing styles due to successive renovations, are in some way quite fascinating; the east side is baroque, the west side, with its lancet windows and drawbridge, seems almost mediaeval. It has corner bartizans and Guelph battlements. For the inhabitants of Costigliole it is a place for fêtes and meetings. When she first saw Cascina Castle’t’s wine being tasted in the castle’s rooms, Mariuccia Borio realised that she had achieved her aim.
Her story is linked to that of the local noble families: the Asinaris of San Marzano, the Verasis, the Medicis of Vascello, the Roràs.
Among the historical figures who have lived there, worthy of mention is Filippo Asinari of San Marzano, plenipotentiary at the court of the Savoias, meticulous scholar and oenophilist who helped spur local viticulture in the 1800s; but even more famous is another of the castle’s tenants, Virginia Verasis, better known as the Countess of Castiglione, whom Cavour entrusted with the delicate task of acting as Piedmont’s ambassadress at the court of Napoleone III, in Paris.
These two families, the Asinaris and the Verasis, are considered to have been responsible for two different areas of the imposing castle: the former the north-western part, of which the town took ownership in 1928; the latter the southern part, now privately owned.