Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Torre Ratti Castle is located in the hamlet of Torre Ratti in the municipality of Borghetto di Borbera, in the lower Borbera Valley, in the province of Alessandria (Piedmont). The lower Borbera Valley was part of the Duchy of Milan for centuries and was enfeoffed by the Rati-Opizzoni family of Tortona. The castle certainly already existed around 1000 when Frederick Barbarossa arrived, but it is mentioned for the first time in 1413 because the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti had requested expansion works to control the southernmost border of the Duchy of Milan with the Republic of Genoa and the Imperial Fiefdoms. The current construction of the castle was developed over different periods (before 1413, 1413-1629, 1560 and after 1629. Today the building appears as a fortified residential residence with late Renaissance and Baroque architectural features. In 1629 the square tower was added and some internal changes were made, subsequently the extension was built between the two towers and the wing on the north side. On the castle's fireplace stands the painting of the Doge of the Republic of Genoa Costantino Balbi painted by Enrico Weimer in 1738 and in the "Hall of Mirrors" there are two seventeenth-century mirrors, one with a console, by the Genoese sculptor and architect Filippo Parodi. Cardinal Achille Ratti, who became Pope Pius XI, asked the Rati-Opizzoni family, at the end of the 19th century, to be able to use their coat of arms, given the homonymy, which thus became the coat of arms of Pope Ratti, granting him the ducal title in exchange.
Torre Ratti Castle is located in the hamlet of Torre Ratti in the municipality of Borghetto di Borbera, in the lower Borbera Valley, in the province of Alessandria (Piedmont). The lower Borbera Valley was part of the Duchy of Milan for centuries and was enfeoffed by the Rati-Opizzoni family of Tortona. The castle certainly already existed around 1000 when Frederick Barbarossa arrived, but it is mentioned for the first time in 1413 because the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti had requested expansion works to control the southernmost border of the Duchy of Milan with the Republic of Genoa and the Imperial Fiefdoms. The current construction of the castle was developed over different periods (before 1413, 1413-1629, 1560 and after 1629. Today the building appears as a fortified residential residence with late Renaissance and Baroque architectural features. In 1629 the square tower was added and some internal changes were made, subsequently the extension was built between the two towers and the wing on the north side. On the castle's fireplace stands the painting of the Doge of the Republic of Genoa Costantino Balbi painted by Enrico Weimer in 1738 and in the "Hall of Mirrors" there are two seventeenth-century mirrors, one with a console, by the Genoese sculptor and architect Filippo Parodi. Cardinal Achille Ratti, who became Pope Pius XI, asked the Rati-Opizzoni family, at the end of the 19th century, to be able to use their coat of arms, given the homonymy, which thus became the coat of arms of Pope Ratti, granting him the ducal title in exchange.
