| Saluzzo | |
| Official Name: | Città di Saluzzo |
| Coordinates: | 44.65°N 36°W |
| Region: | Piedmont |
| Province: | Cuneo (CN) |
| Frazioni: | Casa Fornace, Cascina Budigiai, Castellar, Colombaro Rossi, La Creusa, La Stella, Le Prese, Regione Liona, Regione Paschere, Revalanca, Ruata Eandi, Ruata Re, San Bernardino, Sant'Ugo, Torrazza |
| Mayor Party: | Civic List |
| Mayor: | Mauro Calderoni (since May 27, 2014) |
| Area Total Km2: | 75 |
| Population Total: | 17.574 |
| Population As Of: | 31 December 2023 |
| Population Footnotes: | [1] |
| Population Demonym: | Saluzzese(i) |
| Elevation M: | 395 |
| Saint: | St. Chiaffredo |
| Day: | The Monday after the First September's Sunday |
| Postal Code: | 12037 |
| Area Code: | 0175 |
Saluzzo (pronounced as /it/; Salusse pronounced as /saˈlyse/) is a town and former principality in the province of Cuneo, in the Piedmont region, Italy.
The city of Saluzzo is built on a hill overlooking a vast, well-cultivated plain. Iron, lead, silver, marble, slate etc. are found in the surrounding mountains. On January 1, 2017 it had a population of 17.581
Saluzzo was the birthplace of the writer Silvio Pellico and of typographer Giambattista Bodoni.
See also: Marquisate of Saluzzo. Saluzzo (Salusse in Piedmontese) was a civitas (tribal city state) of the Vagienni, or mountain Ligures, and later of the Salluvii. This district was brought under Roman control by the Consul Marcus Fulvius .
In the Carolingian age it became the residence of a count; later, having passed to the Marquesses of Susa, Manfred I, son of Marquess Bonifacio del Vasto, on the division of that principality became Marquess of Saluzzo; this family held the marquisate of Saluzzo from 1142 to 1548. The marquisate embraced the territory lying between the Alps, the Po and the Stura, and was extended on several occasions. In the Middle Ages it had a chequered existence, often being in conflict with powerful neighbours, chiefly the Counts (later Dukes) of Savoy. After Manfred II's death, his widow had to accept a series of tributes, which were to be later the base of the House of Savoy's claims over the increasingly feebler marquises' territories. Thomas III, a vassal of France, wrote the romance Le chevalier errant ('the knight-errant').
Ludovico I (1416–75) started the Golden Age of the city and imposed himself as a mediator between the neighbouring powers. Ludovico II constructed a tunnel, no longer in use, through the Monviso, a remarkable work for the time. With the help of the French he resisted a vigorous siege by the Duke of Savoy in 1486, but in 1487 yielded and retired to France where he wrote L'art de la chevalerie sous Vegèce ("The art of chivalry under Vegetius", 1488), a treatise on good government, and other works on military affairs. He was a patron of clerics and authors. In 1490 Ludovico regained power, but after his death, his sons struggled longly for the rule and impoverished the state.
After long struggles for independence, the marquisate was occupied (1548) by the French, as a fief of the Crown of France – with the name of Saluces – and remained part of that kingdom until it was ceded to Savoy in 1601. In 1588 Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy took possession of the city. Thenceforward Saluzzo shared the destinies of Piedmont, with which it formed "one of the keys of the house" of Italy.
The Marquisate of Saluzzo is the setting of Boccaccio's tale of Griselda, the final story in the Decameron, as well as Chaucer's Clerk's Tale in The Canterbury Tales.[2]
The municipality of Saluzzo absorbed at the beginning of 2019 the neighbouring commune of Castellar, thus enforcing the results of a referendum held in the summer of 2018.[3]
The municipality of Saluces occupies a vast area of in the Po Valley, about east of Mount Viso.
The, also known as the Cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary of the Assumption, stands out for its Late-Gothic forms; built outside the walls just beyond Porta Santa Maria between 1491 and 1501, it was a bishop's seat starting from 1511. The façade is in exposed brick, adorned by three portals surmounted by terracotta gables that house statues of the apostles (central portal), while above the side there are the patron San Chiaffredo and San Costanzo. The interior has a covering made up of cross vaults, while the Baroque high altar with its large impact is of great impact eleven wooden statues by Carlo Giuseppe Plura and collaborators. In the central nave, you can admire a precious fourteenth-century wooden crucifix. To the left of the main altar is the Chapel of the SS. Sacramento, with a polyptych by the Flemish artist of French origin Hans Clemer, better known as Maestro d'Elva.
The Marquisate of Saluzzo was the seat of a Piedmontese principality whose history is closely linked to that of its powerful neighbor, the House of Savoy, until its definitive incorporation obtained in 1601 by Duke Charles Emmanuel.
The French name of Saluces was given to the city during the period of French domination. There are many traces of this francization still today as on the pediment of the casa cavassa today transformed into a museum where you can read the motto "right whatever it is."
site of the civic museum and rebuilt with a Renaissance interior.