- Canavese
Canavese is a subalpine geographical and historical area of north-west Italy which lies today within the
Province of Turin inPiedmont . Its main town isIvrea and it is famous for its castles.Location
To the north it borders on the
Aosta Valley and to the east on the provinces of Biella and Vercelli. To the south and west the borders have varied over time but might be taken as being the riversStura di Lanzo and Po. The valley of the riverOrco and the area aroundCorio fall within the Canavese. Turin, however, is entirely excluded.The main centres, in addition to Ivrea, are
Caluso ,Chivasso ,Cirié ,Cuorgnè andRivarolo Canavese .List of places in Canavese
History
The first inhabitants of Canavese were the
Salassi , a tribe of Celto-Ligurian roots; the Romans arrived in 22 BCE.When the
Roman Empire fell, Canavese fell under the domination ofByzantium . It was then conquered byLombards and later byFranks .After the death of Arduino, marquis of Ivrea and the first to bear the title of king of Italy (1015), the
Counts of Canavese (who all claimed to be his descendents) shared out the region. This was the beginning of the big families of Canavese: San Martino, Valperga, de Candia, Castellamonte, and later the Biandrate family fromNovara . TheSavoy family started its political expansion in Canavese in the 1300s, and the Commune of Ivrea as well as the Canavese Counts became their subjects.In the 16th century, Canavese came under French domination, then Spanish domination, then back to French domination. Napoleon's defeat meant that Canavese reverted to the
House of Savoy .Culture
acro Monte di Belmonte
The Sacred Mountain of Belmonte (Italian: "Sacro Monte di Belmonte") is a
Roman Catholic sanctuary in the "comune " ofValperga (Canavese), nearTurin . It is one of the nineSacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy , included inUNESCO World Heritage list. The Sacred Mountain of Belmonte was built in 1712 at the initiative of theFriar Minor Michelangelo da Montiglio.Further reading
* [http://www.corsac.org/index.html CORSAC (Centro Ricerche e Studi Alto Canavese)] it
External links
* [http://www.sacrimonti.net/User/index.php?PAGE=Sito_it/Catalogo_eng Official web site for European Sacred Mounts] en icon
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
