page_title: Casale Monferrato
section_title: Piazza Mazzini and its environs
hierarchical_section_title: Casale Monferrato / Main sights / Piazza Mazzini and its environs
caption_attribution_description: Volta del nartece del Duomo di Casale Monferrato
context_page_description: Casale Monferrato is a town in the Piedmont region in Italy, in the province of Alessandria. It is situated about 60 km east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Beyond the river lies the vast plain of the Po valley.
  Since it became a Roman municipium the town has been the most important centre of the zone. After a spell of decline, due to the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbaric invasion, Casale became a free municipality and from the 15th century to the 16th century was the capital of the Palaiologos. Then the Gonzaga got hold of the town and built one of the biggest and most important citadels of Europe. In the 17th century and the 18th century was besieged by both the Spanish and French armies, interested in its strategical position; during Italian unification Casale has been one of the defensive bulwarks against the Austrian Empire. Today Casale, in the middle of the industrial triangle Turin-Milan-Genoa, is an important industrial centre, known for the production of cement and the closed factory Eternit, that produced the homonymous material, very dangerous due to the presence of asbestos.
context_section_description: The historic centre of the town is itself centred on Piazza Mazzini, the site of the Roman forum. Named for Giuseppe Mazzini, a key republican figure of the Risorgimento, it is dominated by an 1843 equestrian statue by Abbondio Sangiorgio of King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia, dressed in Roman costume, specifically as a senator, with his knees uncovered. The statue was commissioned by the municipal authorities as a mark of gratitude to the king for having selected Casale as the seat of Piedmont's second Court of Appeal and to celebrate the construction of Casale's first permanent bridge across the Po. Locally the square is called Piazza Cavallo (wiktionary:cavallo being the Italian word for "horse").
caption: The Cathedral's narthex
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