Châtillon is an Italian town of 4 454 inhabitants in the Aosta Valley. It is the third most populous municipality in the region after the capital and Sarre.
Ussel Castle, in Ussel
Passerin d'Entrèves castle
Various
medieval towers are scattered throughout the hamlets: among them, the
Conoz tower (in the locality of Conoz), the Néran tower (in Néran), the
Desgranges tower, and the Decré d'Émarèse tower (in the locality of La
Tour) are only some of the towers can be seen and visited from the
outside. For the redevelopment and restoration of the Conoz and
d'Émarèse towers, in 2012 the municipality launched a call for ideas
which in the future will allow their gradual recovery with a change of
intended use, probably using them as non-hotel accommodation facilities.
The remaining wall of the Des Rives castle, already abandoned in 1242,
in the locality of Saint-Clair
The imposing church of SS. Peter and Paul
Chapel of Saint Clair
Notre-Dame-de-Grâces chapel from around 1643
Chapel of San Rocco from
1696 in the locality of Ussel
Baron Gamba castle, in the locality of Cret-de-Breil
The Pont Neuf
on the Marmore gorge, at the end of which the ruins of the "Gervasone
ironworks" are still visible
The remains of a Roman bridge over the
Marmore, over which the via delle Gallie passed
The horizontal
analemmatic sundial, the first made in Valle d'Aosta, in the square in
front of the municipal library
Casa Vittaz, the former stables of
Châtillon castle
Brunod house, probably from the 17th century, in the
Chavod locality
Casa della Marca, in the locality of Gléréyaz,
residence of the De Chandiou nobles
Park of the Passerin d'Entrèves castle
Archaeological areas
In the hamlet of Ussel there is a fertility slide from prehistoric times
Via Francigena
The territory of the municipality is an important
transit stage of the Via Francigena coming from Aosta, Nus and Chambave
and subsequently directed towards Verrès[15]. The route of the Via
Francigena partly coincides with that of the ancient Via delle Gallie.
Institutions, organizations and associations
The Corps
philharmonique de Châtillon, municipal fanfare, is one of the few
Italian collectives whose foundation dates back to the 18th century, and
which have never been dissolved during their history.
Schools
Châtillon is home to two regionally important private
educational institutions:
the Salesian professional institute for
industry and craftsmanship, in via Tornafol;
the hotel school (in
French École hôtelière), in the locality of Grange-de-Barme.
Events
The "honey festival", on the last Sunday of October, at the
former Hôtel Londres
The "Biennale of wrought iron and forged knives"
is held in 2011 at its third edition.
Libraries
The library,
named after the abbé Prosper Duc, overlooks via Émile Chanoux, the main
street of the village, in what was once the building owned by the nobles
Scala and Charles Bich (1802–1881) and later the seat of the "Barrack
Menabrea".
Museums
The former Gervasone foundry.
"Honey
Museum", inside the former Londres hotel which also houses the Town Hall
Curiosity
The novel The Chains of Eymerich by Valerio Evangelisti
is set in Châtillon.
The territory of Châtillon is located in the central valley of the
Dora Baltea, between the Dora and the Marmore stream, at the entrance to
the Valtournenche. The town, located in a basin, is dominated to the
north by Monte Zerbion and to the south by Mont Barbeston and the Cime
Noire.
Seismic classification: zone 4 (very low seismicity)
The discovery of ceramic fragments at the Châtillon railway station
has led us to think that this place has been inhabited since prehistoric
times. In the hamlet of La Tour there is also a protohistoric mound.
The Latin toponym is Castellum.
The bridge over the Marmore
stream dates back to Roman times, as do the epigraphs on the wall of the
stairway towards the church. In fact, it is thought that where the
church stands today, in the 1st-2nd century BC. there was a temple
dedicated to the emperor Augustus (as stated on the marble slabs).
In 1600 a member of the influential family of Valtournain notaries,
Pantaléon Bich, based on the testimonies of the village elders, made
this reconstructive description of the Pons Marmoreus (hence Marmore):
"During the Middle Ages, this monument showed itself worthy of Roman
munificence . It was built in tuff and faced with slabs of white marble.
Above the arcade there was a portico with five arches and an upper room
with a roof that completely covered the bridge". Today's bridge, called
Pont Neuf and dedicated to Our Lady of Grace (fr. Notre-Dame de Grâce),
was built in the 18th century on the remains of the older one, of which
little more than a 'arch.
In Roman times, the Via delle Gallie
passed through Châtillon, a Roman consular road built by Augustus to
connect the Po Valley with Gaul.
The toponym of the locality
Champ des Sarrasins (from the French, "Campo dei Saraceni") suggests
that from the early Middle Ages the Saracens carried out raids in the
area. Indeed, the Moors had descended from Burgundy and had conquered
the Valais, which suggests that their control over the Gran San Bernardo
hill is possible. Furthermore, in particular in the Combe Froide, squat
towers prior to the year 1000 can be found, such as the Tornalla in
Oyace, which according to some scholars were built by local feudal lords
to protect their fiefdoms from Saracen raids. Despite these hypotheses
and numerous toponyms that report the Saracen presence in the Valley, in
the Valle d'Aosta patois there is not even a term of Arabic derivation,
and so far no tools or jewelery of Moorish workmanship have ever been
found. Probably the name of the locality, located under the Baron Gamba
castle, is due to some legend.
The fiefdom of Châtillon was
acquired by the Challants in 1252, and by their will two castles were
built: the first, today owned by the Passerin d'Entrèves counts, around
the middle of the 13th century (on the foundations of another previous
manor, built in 1000 from the extinct family of De Castellio or
Castellione), while the second, that of Ussel, in 1350. A third castle,
which belonged to Baron Gamba, with its gardens, was built in 1901.
The village of Châtillon could be defined as a "ville" because, as
written in Coutumier, the laws that governed the duchy of Aosta from the
16th century to the end of the 18th century, it was surrounded by walls.
There were four gates to access the village in total, one of which, the
Porta Marmorea (because it was located along the road from the Roman
bridge) was the private property of the Count of Challant. Only the
denomination of an alley remains of this ancient gate, "rue Tornafol",
from the medieval French term "tournefol", revolving gate.
In the
fifteenth century a terrible fire that broke out in the village led to
the almost total destruction of the ancient village. Today's houses in
the historic center can in fact be dated from a period ranging from the
16th to the 18th century, as can also be deduced from the dates carved
on the windows or stone lintels of the bourgeois houses.
On May
16, 1800, the battle of Châtillon, also known in French as combat de
Châtillon or affaire de Châtillon, took place between the Napoleonic
vanguard and the Austrian rearguard.
Châtillon was the cantonal
seat within the arrondissement of Aosta from 1802 to 1814.
The
vocation of Châtillon as an industrial center began to develop in the
fourteenth century (Maître Hugonin was one of the most famous
blacksmiths of the time in the Duchy; in his workshop in Chaméran he
even melted some of the first prototypes of cannon), with the
exploitation of the iron mines of Ussel, to then reach its apogee in the
18th century under the impulse of the Bich family and, later, of the
Gervasones. In addition to the metallurgical industry, Châtillon enjoys
an excellent tradition linked to the textile sectors (we should mention
the company Soie de Châtillon, founded in 1917, then renamed Società
Anonima Italiana per le Fibre Tessili Artificiali S.p.A., specialized in
the production of technofibres) and manufacturing.
Over the
centuries, Châtillon has also played an important role as a commercial
pole, by virtue of its geographical position at the entrance to the
Valtournenche, also known as Krämerthal (from the German, the "merchant
valley"), due to its frequent trade relations with the Valais via the
Theodul pass. Châtillon established itself as the site of important
trade and livestock fairs.
Until the 19th century, tourism played
a non-secondary role, with the presence of hotels and inns for
mountaineers heading to Valtournenche to attempt the ascent of the
Matterhorn, but also for vacationers, by virtue of the proximity to
Saint-Vincent, the famous place of entertainment and spa treatments.
The toponym is Italianized in Castiglion Dora during the fascism
from 1939 to 1946, and included the municipality of Pontey.
Traditional sports
In this municipality both palet and tsan are
played, characteristic traditional Aosta Valley sports.
Soccer
The local football team is Saint-Vincent Châtillon, which plays in the
Promotion league and plays its matches at the Perucca stadium in
Saint-Vincent.
From 1994 to 2003 and again in 2012 and 2013 it
was the venue for Juventus' pre-season summer retreats.
Other
sports
In 2014, the world championship of retrorunning was held.