Rising from the top of the fortress above the town of Susa stands a castle named after Countess Adelaide. It is there that, in 1046, Countess Adelaide, daughter of Olderico Manfredi, Count of Torino and Marquis of Susa and Berta d'Este, welcomed her husband Oddone of Savoy, offering him the marquisate of Susa and the county of Torino as her dowry.
Adelaide’s origins are surrounded in mystery but what we know for certain is that she was the great-granddaughter of Arduino il Glabrione, who freed the Valley from the Saracens in 976.
Adelaide was of exceptional importance to the history of Piemonte, having given origin, together with her third husband Oddone of Savoy, to the line of the Savoy family and their subsequent rule of Piemonte.
Adelaide, whose people lovingly nicknamed her “Marquise of the Alpi Cozie”, ruled her territories with an iron fist, to defend her prerogatives as a medieval lady against the aspirations of Communes and Bishops. But she was also a generous patron of the arts and made numerous donations to churches and convents, which often proved strategic for the control of her valleys and, consequently, thanks to the real power held by the Savoy family at the time, the crossing of the Alpine passes.
She died on the 19th of December 1091 and was buried in the parish church of Canischio, in the Orco valley, just above Cuorgnè, where she had gone to live.
