Castell'Arquato

The most important wines produced in the Colli Piacentini are Gutturnio, Bonarda, Ortrugo, Malvasia, and Monterosso Val d'Arda.

The Bishop had the right of direct taxation (fodro) throughout the territory of Castell'Arquato on all the men, nobiles, burgenses, lords with houses and lands in the area and on the clerics of Santa Maria.

For 200 lire and a small annual fee he gives also "in perpetual investiture all jurisdictions, honors and tithes" of Castell’Arquato, Lusurasco, San Lorenzo and Vernasca.

The podestà's rule ended in 1290 when Alberto Scotti, backed by the Guelph faction, the merchant class and the artisanal corporations, became lord of Piacenza.

Alberto Scotti allied himself to the Visconti family and extended his dominion to the territory of Piacenza, while entrusting Castell’Arquato to the podestà Tedesio de' Spectinis.

After the arrival of German emperor Henry VII in 1310, Alberto Scotti ruled the village until 1316 when Galeazzo I Visconti besieged Castell’Arquato, which yielded after one year.

Galeazzo Visconti allowed the town "special rights": the ability to juridically emancipate itself from Piacenza and to write laws of its own, the basis of the 15th century statutes.

In 1403 Gian Galeazzo Visconti gave Borromeo de’ Borromei and his descendants feudal powers over Castell’Arquato, with the related fiscal revenues.

In 1438 Filippo Maria Visconti offered the fief to the condottiero Niccolò Piccinino, under whose government the Municipal Statutes were promulgated, the Statuta et Decreta Terrae Castri Arquati.

The rule by the Sforzas went on until 1707, when the territory of Castell'Arquato became part of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza under the Farnese and later the House of Bourbon, until its annexation to Italy in 1860.

The tower of the Visconti Castle
Podestà Palace.