Street of the Brigands

The idea of uniting Roero with the Alto Astigiano brings with it the discovery of a territory that has, not by chance, adopted the popular belief of VIA dei BRIGANTI, as evidenced by numerous proverbs and tales. The BRIGANTAGGIO, besides being a national phenomenon with particular implications in southern Italy, also had a significant development in Piedmont: since the Middle Ages, brigandage often represented the only resource for poor peasant layers, oppressed by feudal abuses and driven to despair. The phenomenon increased and transformed, sometimes taking the form of true mass concentrations. In Piedmont, from the late 1600s onwards, brigandage took on even more precise political identification, whose aims were often ideological, against the Jacobin bourgeoisie of the new Napoleonic Republic.

An interesting testimony from the year 1800, from Turin, the general Jourdan transmitted to the Ministry of the Interior: brigandage is at its height, thefts and murders are committed daily with armed hands on the main roads and in country houses; brigands commit their crimes right up to the doors of the largest municipalities. Generally, the brigands are known to the residents, but no one dares to report them to the authorities for fear of being murdered. The phenomenon had a wide scope in many parts of our region and represented a thorn in the side for the government, and at the same time, a threat to the populations as well. Hunger, misery, and desperation caused by war led many peasants to brigandage starting from the late nineteenth century. In this context, a wild territory, densely wooded, with some transit routes located in the valley and few inhabited centers, spaced apart from one another, such as the territory of Cisterna d'Asti and Ferrere, offered a suitable environment in which brigandage developed. Even in the twentieth century and until World War II, this type of phenomenon was present.

Thus, the VIA dei BRIGANTI today is a source of fascination and can serve as a guiding thread for the discovery of this territory, which is actually much more suggestive in environmental and scenic terms. Cisterna d'Asti is an important hub, in the transition between the morphology of Roero, particularly characterized by fortresses and erosive phenomena, and that of the Alfieri hills, where the reliefs are gentler, still intact in the western area, becoming more populated and cultivated in the eastern portions. This itinerary connects with LA VIA DEI SANTI and therefore links to the great paths of religiosity.