A trip on the meridian and dinner with the Savoy foot soldier: a day in Mondovi, Part I

There was once a boy from a modest family who, in the early eighteenth century, loved to run up and down the little streets of his town. From the historic core of the Piazza district, set on Monte Regale at 559 metres, his gaze could range out towards the plain marked by the river Po, and also towards the hills of the Langhe. At the time he did not yet know that the Gradus Taurinensis meridian passed right through Mondovi, and although he began very early to take an interest in mathematics, he never imagined that years later it would be he, Giovanni Battista Beccaria, by then a famous scientist, who would carry out the first measurements of that meridian. We arrive in Mondovi crossing a bridge over the Ellero stream, and we feel like jokingly complimenting the meridian: it had really "chosen" a fine city to pass through.

Our gaze is constantly drawn to historic palazzi, to splendid churches and characteristic views, as well as to the hill on which the historic centre stands. In the Breo district we admire the church of Santi Pietro e Paolo, and some locals point out to us the iron automaton, made in the eighteenth century by the local craftsman Matteo Mondino, which with a hammer in hand strikes the hours on a bell. That figure is the Moro, one of the symbols of the city, and also the mask that rallies the people for the carnival celebrations. According to a legend, the Napoleonic troops who occupied the city in 1796 mistook the automaton for a lookout and fired at it. After a stroll among the various districts in the lower part of the town, we take the funicular to reach, along a panoramic route, the historic Piazza district. It was precisely here that in 1198 they founded the city.

At that time, in the villages of the area, people were rather tired of the constant oppression of the marquises, so the population decided to form free communes located in hilly and strategic positions: thus Cuneo was also born, in the same year. Our walk continues in the splendid Piazza Maggiore, where we admire the eighteenth-century cathedral of San Donato, built on the site of a pieve dating back to the twelfth century. We also visit the beautiful church of San Francesco Saverio, known as "La Missione", which preserves inside it the pictorial masterpieces of Andrea Pozzo. We reach the Belvedere and, besides the ancient walls and the breathtaking panorama, we admire the civic tower, erected between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, initially in Gothic forms.

The tower, over 29 metres high, in 1762 served Giovanni Battista Beccaria as a trigonometric point for determining the length of the "Monregalese" meridian. From the heights with a view over the Napoleonic battlefields, we decide to pay a visit to a soldier who fought there for his land and who today will host us at his table: so we reach Il Fante Sabaudo restaurant, located in the characteristic Piazza d'Armi. We leave the car in the large car park in front of the venue and, once inside, we are welcomed with great kindness by the young owner Sergio Chiecchio. In the setting of remarkable charm, the ancient and the modern blend together in a completely harmonious way.

To the rooms set within the historic walls and furnished with elegant contemporary design that, in the small room reserved for couples, dresses in the warm colours of the sun, is added also a beautiful terrace, a cool and intimate shelter from the heat on summer evenings. "This building dates back to the eighteenth century and belonged to a farrier. Upstairs there was the stable, and during the renovation both the rings to which the animals were tied and the manger were preserved, which today we use as a container for the wine bottles. But we have also given new life to other salvaged objects, such as an old carpenter's bench of my uncle's to which we added little glass doors," Sergio shows us a few gems, who has run the place since November 2015 together with his trusted friend Brunella Febo, a very skilled forty-three-year-old cook.

"Between the two of us, I'm the more explosive one, always with a thousand new ideas in my head, while Brunella is the wiser one who helps me keep my feet on the ground," Sergio confides, who despite his young age already boasts important experience as a chef, gained not only thanks to his studies at catering school, but also during various internships and periods of work at different kinds of establishments, from the osteria to the 4-star hotel, up to a year spent in France. "The French experience was very formative for me, also because I found myself having to be a pastry chef for the first time in my life. That year spent on the other side of the hills gave me a lot, also in terms of courage and imagination in proposing certain pairings of flavours," Sergio recalls.