There is a garden in which Hortus conclusus of religious origin, faithful to the symbolic notion of an idealized natural paradise, is wedded to the idea of the Hortus deliciarum of flowers and fruit. The story of this site starts from an abbey and ends in an elegant abode, whose spaces overlay the religious ones without losing the thread of continuity that is represented by the Morozzo family.
In the 15th century, there was a considerable expansion of the broken up and reclaimed areas in the territory of Rocca de’ Baldi; much of it was planted with fruit trees and the woods were privatized.
In the midst of irrigated fields of hemp and fraschete a number of churches dedicated to the Virgin and the Saints were built so the local people could give prayers of thanks for their blessed escape from the epidemics. At the junction of the ancient roads leading to Pogliola and Crava was the chapel called the “Crocetta”; on the road to Pesio stood the chapel of San Rocco; just outside the village of Rocca de’ Baldi was a votive pilaster known by the name of “Beata Maria del Pillone”, around which the Abbey of Saint Mary of the Castle was built in about the middle of the 17th century. The original layout of the Abbey consisted of the abbatial church-house and a separate cottage, located on the old royal road that joined the village of Rocca de’ Baldi to Crava and reached by way of an inner garden courtyard on the right side of the church. After centuries of alterations, the complex now consists of the historic 17th c. nucleus joined to the garden and an 18th c. building that affords the main entrance to the residence.
The abbey complex of Saint Mary’s of the Castle, which became the residence of the Morozzo family in the 19th century, consists of three scenic sites of particular historic interest: the inside garden bordered by a wall, the tree-lined driveway, and the park that extends along the southwestern edge of the residence.
The garden was originally a formal space characterized by a symmetrical route of lanes and flowerbeds; an arrangement that made the geometric plantings obligatory. In the middle of the 1800s, with the death of the last abbot Carlo Morozzo della Rocca, it was decided to create a park around what would become a veritable holiday residence. Sinuous paths were created in the surrounding vegetation that gradually became freer, thicker and more majestic. It was a way of proving both the triumph of the “nature” organized by man (over and above the limits imposed by the 17th c. project) and the desire to establish natural, visual connections between the residential complex and its surroundings: the landscape of the Monregalese. Today the scenery is composed of a green area inside the residential complex, which consists of the garden/cloister at the old entrance to the abbey and a nineteenth-century style park that extends along the old road that connects Rocca de’ Baldi to Crava.
Indirizzo: Piazza Pio VII, Rocca de’ Baldi (Cuneo)
Recapiti: tel./fax 0174/587605 oppure tel. 0174/587103 (Comune di Rocca de Baldi)
Proprietà: Comune di Rocca de’ Baldi
Orari di apertura al pubblico: da aprile ad ottobre, sabato e domenica 14.30 – 18.30
IL CHIOSTRO DELL’ABBAZIA BENEDETTINA DI SAN PIETRO (SAVIGLIANO)
Indirizzo: Piazza Molineris , Savigliano (Cuneo)
Recapiti: tel. 0172/710247 (Ufficio Turistico)
Proprietà: Comune di Savigliano
Orari di apertura al pubblico: in fase di restauro. Orari in corso di definizione.
Torna all'inizio