☰Dego

An agricultural center on the slopes of the Ligurian Appennines, it is set on an extensive plain of the Bormida di Spigno and is surrounded by vineyards and hazelnut and chestnut groves. Mentioned in a diploma of concession of Otto I (967), Dego was inherited in 1142 by the marchesi Del Carretto, who fortified the village and set up a mint there. In 1214 the marchesi submitted to Genoa but retained the investiture of the fief, over which the bishop of Acqui had the right to tithes. In 1419 Dego passed to the marchesi del Monferrato and then to the Savoy (seventeenth century). In April 1796 it was the site of a battle at which Napoleon defeated the Austrians and that cost the lives of 400 civilians. The ruins of the medieval castle situated to the north of the village date from the thirteenth century. There are the ruins of two more medieval castles at the localities of Santa Giulia and Brovida. The parish church of Sant'Ambrogio was erected in 1810 on the site of a preexisting building, while the church of San Rocco is of seventeenth-century origin. The local manufacturing industry is based around a number of glassworks.