Castello di Manta

In the mountains above Cuneo, in the foothills where the Alps begin their serious ascent toward France, a small village called Manta contains one of the great hidden treasures of medieval art in Italy. The Castello della Manta was the seat of the Marchesato di Saluzzo, a small but sophisticated principality that occupied the southwestern corner of Piedmont from the 12th to the 16th century. In its Baron's Hall, around 1420, an unknown artist painted a fresco cycle of such quality and completeness that it represents the most important surviving secular Gothic painting in Piedmont. Most visitors to Italy never hear of it.

The Marchesato di Saluzzo was one of the last independent Italian principalities to fall to the Savoyard expansion, absorbed only in 1601, after the Treaty of Lyon. For four centuries it occupied a liminal position between France and Savoy, culturally French in its language and artistic connections, politically always in play between larger powers. The Manta castle was the principal seat of the Del Vasto family, Marchesi di Saluzzo, and the artistic culture of their court was closer to the French Duc de Berry than to any Italian contemporary.

The Baron's Hall at Manta contains two fresco cycles painted around 1420, almost certainly by a local artist working in the International Gothic style under direct French influence. The first cycle depicts the Nine Heroes and Nine Heroines, a standard medieval theme of nine ideal warrior-figures drawn from antiquity, the Old Testament and the medieval period, but executed here with extraordinary refinement: heraldic detail, contemporary court costume, rich colour, individuated faces that suggest portraiture. The second cycle depicts the Fountain of Youth: old and infirm figures entering the water on one side, emerging young and vigorous on the other, surrounded by courtly figures dancing, dressing and feasting. The Fountain of Youth cycle is one of the most complete surviving examples of this theme in European medieval painting.

International Gothic was the pan-European courtly style of the late 14th and early 15th centuries: the style of the Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures, of Gentile da Fabriano, of the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. It was characterised by sinuous line, jewel-like colour, elaborate pattern and a particular quality of decorative luxuriance. The Manta frescoes belong to this tradition and demonstrate that it penetrated even into the relatively remote valleys of southwestern Piedmont. They were painted within a decade of the Très Riches Heures and share its visual vocabulary.

The Fondo Ambiente Italiano acquired Manta in 1985 and undertook a major restoration of the frescoes, which had deteriorated significantly under previous owners. The restoration, completed over several years in the late 20th century, stabilised the surface and recovered much of the original colour. The frescoes are now properly lit and explained; the Baron's Hall is the sole reason most art historians visit Manta.

Beyond the Baron's Hall, the castle contains period-furnished rooms, a chapel and a loggia with views over the Po plain toward the Alps. The town of Saluzzo below is one of the best-preserved medieval-Renaissance towns in Piedmont, with a cathedral, a Gothic church, San Giovanni, and the Casa Cavassa with its own frescoed interior. A half-day combining the castle and the town is the recommended visit pattern.