Castle of Moncalieri, or the Castello de la Rotta, in Moncalieri (province of Turin), Piedmont, in northern Italy was built by Knight’s Templar in the 10th century. They built it to guard the bridge that stretched over Po River, then the only access to Turin. The Knights were formed after the First Crusade in 1096 to ensure the safety of the European pilgrims toward Jerusalem. Over the years, the order grew, as did the amount of property the owned. Envious of their holdings, King Phillip IV of France declared the order heretical and ordered their extermination so he could collect their land and money.
In the 13th century, Thomas I of Savoy took over the palace and in the mid-17th century Yolanda of Valois, wife of Duke Amadeus IX, converted the castle into her own home, devoted to feminine wiles. Later, architect Carlo di Castellamonte enlarged the castle considerably. Between 1798 and 1814, French armies used the castle as a headquarters in Moncalieri, then was returned to Charles Albert of Sardinia, son of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia. As the new King, he prefered his home to the castle in Turin and raised the Royal Family there. In 1921, it was turned back over to the military police, then sold to Count Augusto Olivero who restored a wing of the castle where he lives with his family.
Like most castles, this one has a bloody past that may account for the volume of paranormal activity that is encountered here:
- In 1631, the black death hit northern Italy. It is believed that over 300 people died during this epidemic and were buried in a mass grave under the fron entrance to the castle. Some of their ghosts, like those of the Knights Templar, have been sighted.
- During the French invasion of Turin in 1639, the castle was taken over as a military post. It is said that thousands of citizens were killed and a lot of them were thrown into the castle well; the well now has a haunting reputation.
- The Lady in White seems to appear on every June 15th on the tower. Local legend says she was a maiden who was supposed to marry the elderly owner of the castle, but chose to fling herself off of the tower instead. Many times, there is a phantasmagoria, a group of phantoms that gather beneath the tower to observe her specteral body.
- In 1980, owner Count Augusto Olivero was digging in the dry, overgrown mote when he unearthed the skeleton of a man, his iron cross and his horse. Two days after this, the riders ghost has been seen riding around the castle grounds; he took to calling the ghost Arturo.
One curious artistic flare believed to have been the brain-child of one of architect Carlo di Castellamonte’s aquantences is the Hall of Mirrors. In Victorian times, there were rooms once made out of mirrors. These were called psychomantiums, and it was believed that more than one mirror facing another opened up a sort of gate to the spirit world. Perhaps this is what causes the supernatural occurances in the Castle?
