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Regions in Italy Region Piemonte > Province Torino > Comune Pinerolo

Pinerolo

Province of Torino, Piemonte (Piedmont-Piemont) Region, Italy

The Locality: Pinerolo is a town 50 km southwest of Turin.It is situated where the Val Lemina and the Val Pellice join the Val Chisone Val Chisone and Val Pellice, and it has a special climate protected from the cold Alpine wind by the hills.

INFO: -- Population: about 35,000 inhabitants -- Zip/postal code: 10064 -- Phone Area Code: 0121
Patron Saint: San Donato celebrated on 30th August

EVENTS Pinerolo was the host city of the Curling events and Paralympic tournaments at the 2006 Winter Olympics.

HISTORY: Pinerolo has always had a great strategic importance; infact it was a commercial centre which lead to France. When it became under the French in the 16th century, the king's best military architects changed Pinerolo into a stronghold. The Duomo, built in the 11th c., was reconstructed in the 15th century, but only remains,of the original Gothic building,the doorway and the campanile (1425, unfinished).

WHAT TO SEE:
Nearby is the Fortezza di Fenestrelle the longest fortress in Europe, in which the "Man with the Iron Mask" was imprisoned. The Man in the Iron Mask was a prisoner believed to have been held in the Bastille prison from an unknown date to his death on November 19, 1703. The identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed, mainly because no one ever saw his face as it was hidden by a black velvet mask, which later re-tellings of the story have said to have been an iron mask. The first surviving records of the masked prisoner are from July 1, 1669, when Louis XIV's minister Louvois sent a masked prisoner to the care of governor marquis de Saint-Mars of the prison of Pinerolo.
Museo Nazionale dell'Arma di Cavalleria (National Cavalry Museum).
Museum of Sacred Art
Study Centre and Museum of Prehistoric Art
Collezione Civica d'Arte di Palazzo Vittone
Museo Civico Etnografico del Pinerolese

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