A perfectly preserved medieval ricetto
A few kilometres from Biella, the village of Candelo preserves one of the best preserved examples in Europe of a ricetto, a typical medieval structure of Piedmont: a fortified enclosure built between the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the community, not by a lord, to protect the most precious goods, such as wine, grain and other crops, from raids and wars, and where the inhabitants could take refuge in case of danger. The name comes from the Latin "receptum", refuge.
The ricetto of Candelo has the shape of an irregular pentagon, surrounded by pebble walls with corner towers and a square entrance tower, and contains about 200 small buildings, the "cellule", arranged along a grid of straight streets, the "rue", paved with river pebbles. The buildings, in stone and brick, have two floors: the ground floor was used as a cellar for wine, with a constant temperature, the upper floor, accessed by external wooden stairs or balconies, as a granary and storeroom. Nobody lived here permanently: people lived outside, in the village, and came to the ricetto to work and store their products. Walking through its silent lanes is like a journey back in time, and the ricetto is often used as a film set. In spring it hosts the flower event "Candelo in fiore", and in December the Christmas village.
Tip: the ricetto can be visited freely all year round; in summer, visit in the late afternoon, when the light warms the pebbles of the walls.
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