A visit to the Ricetto of Candelo arouses deep emotions. Walking through its cobbled streets is like breathing history, it is like "going up and down" through the Middle Ages to discover moments linked to peasant culture, it is like losing yourself in the magic of a unique place. At a time of looting, dangers and uncertainties, some villages (particularly in the Piedmont and Central Europe area) had a protected and fortified place, called "ricetto", where goods and precious products for the sustenance of their families were kept safe. Inside the ricetto, in fact, foodstuffs such as cheese, wine, flour and cereals belonging to the local lord and to the local population itself were kept. On certain occasions, when there was the danger of an external attack, the ricetto also served as a refuge for the population itself.
Piedmont is fortunate enough to have one of the best preserved medieval castles in Italy and Europe. The architecture is dated between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century.
Five rue (streets), running east-west and intersected by two orthogonal ones, cross an area of about 13,000 m2 where two hundred buildings called cellule were built. All around the perimeter run the boundary walls with cylindrical towers at the corners, except for the south side where the town hall was built in 1819 in a neoclassical style completely different from the rest of the village.
