Neive

Neive is a town of about 3,000 inhabitants in the province of Cuneo, that has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, around 5,000 years ago. The town owes its name to a noble Roman family, the “gens Naevia” or “Naevii”, as it was under their possession. Under the empire of Charlemagne, the town was ceded as a fief. At the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, the Hungarians and then the Saracens arrived. In 1274, due to a dispute between Asti and Alba, the castle of Neive was stormed and destroyed out of spite. From 1560, after about 17 years of French usurpation, it was returned to the Savoy family, with Emanuele Filiberto and his son Carlo Emanuele I. In 1618, under Carlo Emanuele I’s reign, Neive became a fiefdom assigned to Count Vittorio Amedeo Dal Pozzo who assumed the title of first Earl of Neive. With the House of Savoy, Neive followed the fate of the kingdom until the constitution of the Italian Republic. Stately homes, like the one built between 1759 and 1789 in the Savoy Baroque style that belonged to the Counts of Castelborgo (1751) and the archconfraternity of San Michele, are the work of the Neivese architect Giovanni Antonio Borgese. The nearby Torre dell’Orologio (1224) is from the same period and was built under the dominion of the municipality of Asti.