Top of the World
A hidden wonder of Val Vobbia is the Castello della Pietra, a place so out of line that it is almost hard to believe it is true.
Take two rocky spurs not too far from each other and build a castle in the middle: et voilà one of the most curious and surprising constructions of the Ligurian hinterland and, I dare to say, of all Italy. A perfect fusion between landscape and human ingenuity, something to be envied by the Greek Meteors.
There is not yet sufficient and exhaustive historical documentation about the actual date of construction, so it has been assumed that the construction could be dated back to 1100 or an even earlier date, but even now the mystery remains.
In ancient times, since the Longobard era, there were the monks of the Abbey of San Colombano di Bobbio, to which the area belonged, who built hermitages in caves or in high and inaccessible places; as happened for the hermitage of San Colombano.In 1620 the emperor Matthias of Hapsburg annexed it to the Pallavicino fiefdom in Val Borbera, thus losing all autonomous jurisdictional power, but constituting until the end of the 18th century one of the largest fiefdoms of the Fieschi and Spinola; under his jurisdiction were Torre di Vobbia, Pareto in Val Brevenna and Gordena in Alta Val Borbera. Later it became the property of the Botta Adorno family. In 1797, the French troops reached the Apennines and, at the behest of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Imperial Feuds were suppressed. The manor was thus abandoned by the last charismatic lord of the castle, Michele Bisio, and after a few years it was set on fire, decreeing its progressive ruin. The bronze cannons were taken from the bishop of Tortona and then used to cast the bells of the church of Santa Croce di Crocefieschi.
