Masserano: The Pocket-Sized Principality That Defied the Savoys

There is a Piedmontese village of a thousand inhabitants that for nearly two centuries was an independent principality, with its own mint and the right to coin money. Masserano, in the lower Biella plain, was a fief of the Fieschi of Genoa and then an autonomous principality from 1598 to 1767 — when the Savoys absorbed it into Piedmont. From that era remain the princely palace, the collegiate church of San Teonesto and a square that still has the proportions of someone designing for a court, not a village.

The Collegiate Church and the Palace

The Collegiate Church of San Teonesto, erected between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on commission from the Fieschi princes, is one of the most ambitious churches in rural Biella: the Baroque facade, the bell tower and the three-nave interior with stuccoes and altarpieces of good quality document a courtly patronage that the tiny village would not lead you to expect. The princely palace, now partly open, preserves rooms with seventeenth-century frescoes. The visit is free but you need to arrange times with the municipality.

The Lower Biella Landscape

Masserano lies in the strip of plain between Biella and Vercelli, a landscape of rice paddies and canals that in spring reflects vast skies. The village is surrounded by rice fields and rows of poplars that in autumn become golden columns. Silence is the dominant character of the territory: no motorway passes nearby, and trains can be heard only in the distance.

How to Get There and What to Expect

Masserano is 15 kilometres from Biella and 60 from Turin. It is reached by car along provincial road 142 from Biella toward Gattinara. There are no hotels in the village: the best option is a B&B in the surrounding farmsteads or accommodation in Biella. The ideal period is spring or late summer, when the flooded rice paddies mirror the sky.