Castello di Magliano Alfieri con Musei del Paesaggio

The Castle of Magliano Alfieri places two museums of rural culture inside a seventeenth-century aristocratic residence. Its subjects are closely connected: decorated plaster ceilings reveal the skills used in local houses, while the Teatro del Paesaggio explores the changing relationship between communities and the hills of the Langhe and Roero.

Why it matters

The castle gives equal attention to domestic craftsmanship and to landscape as a historical creation. The collections grew from local research into traditions that might otherwise have disappeared as older farmhouses and patterns of rural life changed. The museums form part of the Museo Civico Antonio Adriano di Arti e Tradizioni Popolari.

What to notice

The plaster-ceiling collection includes panels recovered from rural buildings. Their patterns were produced by pouring wet gypsum over decorated wooden moulds between ceiling beams: the negative carving became a raised design in the finished panel. The Teatro del Paesaggio uses multimedia to examine agricultural work, settlement and the transformation of the Tanaro valley and surrounding hills.

Context and history

The Alfieri family developed the castle as a noble residence during the seventeenth century. The museum dedicated to plaster ceilings opened in 1994, drawing on the work of Antonio Adriano and local cultural associations. The Teatro del Paesaggio followed in 2015, extending the focus from the material culture of individual houses to the wider territory and its social history.