Frinco Castle

In a dominant position, the imposing mass of the Castle has preserved its original character of defensive structure, that for centuries has controlled the transit in the valley below.

The access road climbs between the houses of the country until the factory base, where the arches on the South side, wrapping up the embankment in the upper hill, are like bastions.

From a little square, after the first barrier through a portal surmounted by a turret, it comes up at the foot of the great round tower, which, with the connected body of a three-storey building, is the oldest section of the Castle.

The Tower, at the West corner of the Manor, has the serrated crown and Wolf teeth; you can see his Ghibelline battlement surmounted by the roof; its interior has a domed ceiling.

From here, with a bend to the right, you arrive then at the entrance to the Castle, which was defended by a sort of fortified porch with sturdy lattice, topped with polychrome arches.

After the front porch and a brick paving, you can access to the Hall of the Castle from which one can climb upstairs via a staircase or enter the courtyard, built on two different floors separated by a balcony. From the lower Courtyard you can are acces the underground warehouses and kitchens. Rising from the Atrium staircase, on the left you see the trace of a medieval arch in the oldest Castle structure, then you come to the first floor.

By a corridor running through all the ’ building by turning around the central courtyard, you reach to a salon decorated with stucco and with pilasters with Corinthian capitals, probably dated 17th century.
From the hallway you can access a series of large rooms; one of these was a chapel during the recent possession of the Padri Giuseppini.

On the eastern side a loggia, which combines the buildings South and North separated from the courtyard, offers beautiful views of the landscape of the hills and the Versa Valley. The rooms, many in each floor, do not keep unfortunately that little decorations.

Some underground structures, formed from basements and connecting tunnels and in particular a pit fraught with sharp lances that were plunging uninvited guests via a trap door hidden in the floor of a room, recall to mind ancient legends and medieval stories.

The parish Church, neo-Gothic, It was connected to the eastern side of the Manor to allow direct access to the Lords of Frinco.

The Castle has always been owned by various feudal lords of Frinco, in chronological order Pelletta, Turco, Mazzetti, then of the marquises Incisa di Camerana which sold it in 1893 the Oblates of San Giuseppe that used it as summerhouse for tehir students. During the first world war, the premises of the Manor housed Austro-Hungarians prisoners of war, which were used for redrawing the course of the Creek Pours that until then was tortuous and often provoked floods.

In the 1487 the Mazzetti Family acquired from the’ Emperor of Holy Roman Empire the grant of minting coins in gold and silver imprinted with its own coat of arms.

It seems, however, that only after the second half of the sixteenth century, they have received this privilege. The Mint of Frinco was often used for forgeries by some family Clusters, which engaged their best masters coniatori dependencies and zecchieri such as Geronimo sword and Giacomino, both of Moncalvo, in order to obtain maximum results. Counterfeiting of the Mint of Frinco involved circulating money in various Italian territories, French, Spaniards, German and Swiss. Various documents that confirm The contraffazzioni in:

- 13 May 1581: the Duke of Savoia Charles Emmanuel had been in low-value frinchesi (quarters, money and other low coins) a similarity with their own.
- 12 December 1583: the Duke ordered the closing of the Mint and forbade the course throughout the Duchy of coins minted by Mahesh. These orders were completely ignored.
- 15 December 1584: the Lords of Piacenza, the Farnese, verified the falsification of its parpagliole by Mazzeti, prohibited the introduction into their territory of frinchesi coins.
- 16 May 1585: the casalese Ricci says that Frinco you abused the Mint manufacturing parpaiole of less actual value and other bogus coins engraved with the images of other strangers. Other documents of the Serenissima Republic of Venice i sesini which were repeatedly falsified; the doge Marino Grimani issued 18 December 1603 an invitation with which condemned to death the family Clusters, be the masters of the Mint frinchese . The 26 April 1611Ercole and Julius Caesar Bunches were deprived of land and the right of minting by Rudolph of Austria. which the architect Giovanni Solari who then gave the German Ernst Molart courtier, Reineck and Baron of Drosendorf.

The Baron had received the privilege of not no money and broke free earlier than distant territory of Frinco ceded to the Duke of Savoy in 1614. The same Duke Carlo Emanuele I, invested him back to Mahesh, but this time without the privilege to Mint coin.

In the 1992 the castle was bought by the Lombard family Pica Alfieri, who currently owns the property