Giaveno is a comune in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian regionPiedmont, located about west of Turin. HISTORY Giaveno has very ancient origins; some local history scholars trace the first settlement back to Roman times. The important Gavi family of Augusta Taurinorum built a farmhouse here, probably in the 1st century AD; to corroborate this thesis there are some random finds of necropolis materials in the fields at the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Bussone and a stretch of paving at the bridge of the Tortorello torrent. It is said that Charlemagne in 773 crossed the watershed that divides the Val di Susa from that of the Sangone, came to the plain located near the village Gavensis and caught the Longobards from behind between the Chiusa di S. Michele and Villardora and defeating them. In 1103 the Count of Savoy, Umberto II, donated the territory of Giaveno to the Abbey of San Michele della Chiusa, but Federico Barbarossa, despot of the time, on January 26, 1195 removed it from the Abbey to give it to Charles I, bishop of Turin. Giaveno returned to the abbots of San Michele with a donation from the Count of Savoy Tommaso I on 21 February 1209, who fortified the square with a robust wall and built a castle there. Subsequently, in 1347, Abbot Rodolfo di Mombello decided to "villam iavenni murare", with two trebuchet walls, interspersed with five circular towers. The perimeter of the "Abbey Citadel" is still clearly legible today. In 1611 a new patron S. Antero, whose relics were moved from Rome to Giaveno, joins the owner of the protection of the village, S. Lorenzo. In 1622 Cardinal Maurizio asked for and obtained from the Holy See the erection bull of the Insigne Collegiate of San Lorenzo Martire. At the end of the seventeenth century the numerous raids with looting by the French general Nicolas Catinat stripped the villages, the castle and the churches. 1630 proved to be a particularly critical year for the country, since during the Second Monferrato War, Giaveno was occupied by French troops led by the Duke of Montmorency. In the meantime, plague erupts throughout Piedmont, reaping huge victims. The Savoys go to war against the French. Marshal of France Nicolas Catinat invades Piedmont, putting it on fire and, after the battle of Marsaglia won by the French, Giaveno undergoes looting and fire. The French were defeated and driven out of Piedmont after the fatal siege of Turin on 8 September 1706. Important pages of history were written in the Resistance period which saw the partisans and the entire population. rise up against Nazi-fascist oppression. For these episodes, the town of Giaveno was awarded the silver medal for military value by the President of the RepublicOscar Luigi Scalfaro.
