Andezeno has approximately 2,100 inhabitants and is located 20 km from Turin.
The first written record of Andezeno, a settlement of probable pre-Roman origin, dates back to 992 in a confirmation diploma to the monks of the Abbey of Breme – formerly of Novalesa – of many properties, including Andesellum. In 1234, the Counts of Biandrate – allies of the Marquess of Monferrato – also became lords in Andezeno, which led to conflicts with the free Commune of Chieri. Several years of conflicts followed, ending in 1290 with the sale of the lordship to the people of Chieri.
Partially destroyed by the Spanish army in order to drive out the French who had occupied it and threatened Chieri, it was enfeoffed by the House of Savoy to its citizens, with the right to rebuild the place and all their other belongings. Later, feudal rights were claimed by the Balbiano family and other local nobles. With the Napoleonic occupation, it was included in the Department of the Po and was part of the District of Riva near Chieri until the unification of Italy.
The bell tower, once a defensive tower of the ancient “castrum.” The original nucleus of the castle, of which few traces remain, dates back to the 12th century, making it difficult to determine whether it was a castle or just a fortification with a surrounding wall around the fortress.
The cemetery Church of San Giorgio (12th century) belongs to the typology of Romanesque parishes in the Monferrato region, which over the centuries transitioned from parish churches to cemetery churches. It is a rectangular building with a single nave, very simple inside and devoid of furnishings. From the original Romanesque structure, the semicircular apse and the southern wall survive, where bricks and marbles from Roman times were reused; it is still possible to see on a funerary stele the crossed tails of two dolphins.
On the hill overlooking Andezeno stands the parish Church of San Giorgio, an imposing Baroque building in exposed brick completed in 1759 – a rectangular single-nave structure with six chapels – designed by the architect Giovan Battista Casasopra, a student of Vittone. The high altar houses the body of Santa Giustina, the patron saint of the land’s fruits, in a wooden urn. The frescoes on the vault (1853 and 1859) were created by the Turin painters Luigi and Rodolfo Morgari.
Places of Interest
The Church of the Batù or the Confraternity of S. Marco, consecrated in 1604, has a simple façade divided into two superimposed orders and with a quadrangular tympanum.
The Cascina Fruttera, a summer residence of the House of Savoy diplomat Joseph De Maistre (1753-1821), a medieval property of the Abbey of Fruttuaria in San Benigno Canavese, is now a linear courtyard farmhouse dating back to the 17th-18th centuries.
Villa Simeom, built at the end of the 18th century, with over seven hectares of parkland and six hundred square meters of original period rooms, was formerly a hunting lodge, summer residence, and safe haven. For generations, it was the residence of the Simeom family, where they collected and archived the most important testimonies of subalpine history in the homonymous collection, thanks to the expertise and dedication of Silvio Simeom, which is now preserved and accessible at the Historical Archive of Turin. The Hall of Festivals, located in the center of the Villa, entirely frescoed and characterized by impeccable acoustics and a ceiling over 12 meters high, was created to host dance evenings and classical concerts (www.villasimeom.it).
In the Footsteps of Don Bosco
Don Bosco in Andezeno
The Cascina Fruttera in Andezeno, an agricultural estate of medieval origin, was founded by the Abbey of San Benigno di Fruttuaria – from which the name Fruttera derives – for the management of the land properties that the abbey held in the area. It is a large closed courtyard farmhouse (also consisting of a master building and a chapel) located halfway up the Andio hill, not far from the ancient road de Paneis (now Via della Rezza) that connects Chieri, through the Bardassano hill, to the banks of the Po near Castiglione Torinese. The Fruttera belonged to the Maistre family from 1820 to 1873. During this period, it is worth mentioning the visits made by Don Bosco, a “saintly hiker,” as documented by the numerous routes he walked on foot through the hills of Piedmont, with the Fruttera being one of his stops. The founder of the Salesians visited Andezeno for the first time in the summer of 1856 and then returned in the autumn of 1857, as a guest of the Rodolfo de Maistre family, along with some students from the Oratory of Valdocco. Don Giovanni Battista Francesia, who accompanied Don Bosco on many of his autumn walks, documented the visit to Andezeno in the collection of memories entitled “Don Bosco and his autumn walks in Monferrato,” where the encounter between the future Saint and the de Maistre family is described in great detail with tasty anecdotes.