A Guide to Visiting Castle Sarriod de la Tour in Italy

Sarriod de La Tour

A treasure box of unexpected treasures. That's what the Sarriod de La Tour castle in Saint-Pierre is, a plain manor that serves as a counterbalance to the high castle, now home to the Museum of Natural Sciences. The Sarriods are a family of minor nobility, initially linked to the bishop's clients before entering the circle of families intimately connected to the House of Savoy. The leap in social hierarchies, which occurred in the 13th century, underlies the very birth of the castle and is linked to the figure of Guglielmo Sarriod, with whom we can associate the construction of the tower in its present form. The thirteenth-century castle consisted of a defensive curtain wall, which is little or nothing perceptible today, and in addition to the tower included other buildings including a small chapel, where restorations have brought to light portions of a fresco cycle of incredible quality, with fantastic characters and sacred figures. The expansion of the castle was largely due to work begun in the first half of the 15th century by John, the first to bear the name Sarriod de La Tour following the division of his father's inheritance with his brother, Ibleto, who was to take the name Sarriod d'Introd. The fifteenth-century castle was transformed into a manor with spaces and rooms worthy of a refined and courteous lord, and among these we cannot fail to mention the splendid hall that houses the so-called "attic of the heads," a work of cabinetmaking of absolutely extraordinary quality, decorated with figurative corbels of characters out of a fantastic and imaginary Middle Ages, which hardly seems compatible with the idea we often have of a dark and bigoted period.

Recently the subject of works that have modified its tour route, the castle of Sarriod de La Tour is a still little-known gem of history and art: come and discover it, you will not be disappointed.

Come and visit it!

Information

Rue du Petit-Saint-Bernard, 20, Saint-Pierre

Opening hours

Monday - Sunday 9 am - 7 pm

Admission tickets

6 full price, 4 reduced