Town Of Fontanile: The Walls Tell

This small medieval town is well known of its UNESCO vineyards and also wall paintings. Starting from 2018 the the municipal project "The walls tell ..." started and now town is converted to an open air art exhibition center, that tells story about Fontanile`s history and its citizens customs and traditions. The paintins is made on the city walls by well known paiter Luigi Amerigio. Fontanile is a very lively land: in November 2018 it won the third place in the "Dopo l'UNESCO, agisco!" contest, an initiative promoted by Regione Piemonte to enhance the wine-growing landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato included in the World Heritage List from 22 June 2014, with the project "I muri raccontano", thanks to which the story of the small centre of southern Asti region was told through camouflage works on walls and facades of houses. Walking in the city you will see the history of Fontanile through wall paintings. The Fontaniles history is rich, because Fontanile, from "Fontanili" or "Fontanilis", "Land rich in springs" is its very name to indicate the main characteristic of the territory, once more rich than today in spring waters that fed the Rio Cervino and which even formed a lake in the Robiano Valley, as well as in the marshy areas. The inhabited nucleus originates around the 4th-5th century AD, when the barbarian invasions forced the populations of the valley bottom to move to higher and better defensible places. It came shortly after the time of the Saracens: the whole territory of Lower Monferrato became the scene of terrible raids and destruction against which the fortified fortress that the Fontanilesi built between the ninth and tenth centuries was little able to - a period which also dates back to the first historical reference of the town. - strictly defensive function. In 1532 Fontanile had its own "Statutes" approved by the Marquis Gian Giorgio del Monferrato, which replaced the legislation of 1337, adapting to the political reality of the time and recognizing, in practice, the autonomous growth of the Community of Mantua.