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Susa

A town in the Metropolitan City of Turin, capital of the Alpine kingdom of Cottius and home to the Arch of Augustus, it stands at 503 metres along the Dora Riparia at the mouth of the passes toward France.

Image from the publication of Città di Susa - Visita Susa
From the publication of Città di Susa - Visita Susa

Susa is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Turin, set at 503 metres above sea level in an Alpine basin along the Dora Riparia, in the valley that takes its name from the river; the municipal area covers 11.3 square kilometres and in 2008 had 6,746 inhabitants.[1] Its importance for Turin and for Piedmont stems from its position: the Susa Valley begins right at the edge of the city and reaches France via the Moncenisio and Monginevro passes.[2] For two thousand years, anyone wishing to cross the western Alps has passed through here, and the town preserves, one layer upon another, the traces of Celts, Romans, marquises and the House of Savoy.

Before Rome: the cup-marked altar

On the hill beside the remains of the Roman aqueduct stands a carved rock, dated to the 7th century BC, with cup-shaped hollows, some round and some square, linked by small channels. Scholars identify it as a sacrificial altar used by Celtic priests; a well cut into the rock nearby is thought to have supplied water for purification rites. The altar faces Rocciamelone, a 3,538-metre mountain the Celts held sacred.[3]

Segusio, the city of Cottius

Ancient Segusio was the capital of a kingdom that later took the name of the Cottian Kingdom[1] and was ruled by Donnus and then by his son Cottius.[4] The town's historical guide recalls that era in these words: «It was precisely under the reign of Donnus and his son Cottius that the Segusine territory enjoyed a period of particular peace and prosperity».[4] Cottius chose alliance with Rome over confrontation and, holding the title of prefect, remained head of the fourteen peoples that made up his kingdom on both sides of the Alps.[5] Under Augustus the settlement was granted the status of a vicus under Latin law and later became a Roman municipium.[1] The Enciclopedia Italiana of 1937 explained its fortunes thus:

«Segusio stood in the best position to dominate the valley and the passage of the great imperial road that led beyond the Alps from Turin by way of the Monginevro pass.»

Enciclopedia Italiana, entry «Susa», 1937

The great imperial road that climbed from Augusta Taurinorum, Roman Turin, to the Monginevro pass ran through Segusio; later the town was raised to a municipium under Roman law and enrolled in the Quirina tribe.[6]

The Arch of Augustus and other Roman remains

The monument that symbolizes Susa is the single-bayed arch that Cottius had erected in 9 BC in honour of Augustus.[1] It is built of white marble quarried at nearby Foresto; the archway is 8.85 metres high and 5.86 metres wide. The frieze runs along all four sides and tells, in images, the story of the pact between the Alpine king and the emperor: on the north side a suovetaurilia sacrifice, with a pig, a ram and a bull, and a veiled Cottius standing beside a Roman magistrate; on the west side two figures holding the scrolls of the agreement; on the south side a second sacrifice, while the east side was lost in a fire. The bronze letters of the inscription on the attic have disappeared, but the position of the fixing holes allows the text to be reconstructed: it named Cottius, the fourteen peoples, and Augustus in his thirteenth imperial acclamation.[5]

A few steps from the arch stand two arches built of limestone blocks, resting on the remains of the Celtic altar. They are known as the «Terme Graziane» (Gratian's Baths) owing to a mistaken attribution: an inscription recorded baths restored between 375 and 378 by the emperors Gratian, Valens and Valentinian, and the aqueduct came to be linked with that name. In the Middle Ages the arches were incorporated into the town's defences and connected to a tower in the walls; they were restored in the 19th century.[7]

The amphitheatre, from the 2nd-3rd century, is an ellipse measuring 45 by 37 metres, said to be the smallest Roman amphitheatre in Italy. It hosted gladiatorial combats and hunts, the venationes; an underground corridor linked four cells where men and animals waited. Probably abandoned from the 5th century onward, it was gradually buried by the floodwaters of the Merdarello stream and was brought back to light by excavations carried out between 1956 and 1961.[8]

Late antique walls and Porta Savoia

In the 3rd century, faced with invasions, the inhabitants hastily encircled the town with walls four to six metres thick, built using rubble-core («a sacco») construction; excavations have brought to light a great deal of reused Roman material, a sign of how quickly the work was carried out. What survives is Porta Savoia, also called Porta del Paradiso for its proximity to the cathedral cemetery: a gate flanked by two cylindrical towers, with four tiers of arched openings in the stretch between the towers, closed in the evening by a portcullis operated from a covered gallery facing the town. The towers were lowered during the course of the 18th century, the last time by order of Napoleon.[9]

From the Goths to the House of Savoy

During the Gothic War the valley was ruled by a Gothic chieftain, Sisigis, Latinized as Sisinnius; in the 10th century the Saracens of Frassineto devastated the town.[6] Shortly before the year 1000, Arduin the Glabrous, Margrave of Turin, extended his control over the valley as far as Monginevro; his grandson Olderico Manfredi, father of Adelaide, founded the abbey of San Giusto near Porta Savoia.[4] The church of San Giusto, now the cathedral, dates from 1029.[1] The turning point came in 1046 with the marriage of Adelaide, heiress of the march of Turin, to Oddone, son of Umberto Biancamano: through that marriage Susa passed under Savoyard control.[1] According to the town's historical guide, the marriage was celebrated in the Susa cathedral itself.[4] This was the act by which the House of Savoy set foot on the Italian side of the Alps, from where it would later descend to Turin.

The castle, built in the 10th century but later rebuilt entirely, today houses the civic museum.[1] Frederick Barbarossa put the town to the torch: according to the Enciclopedia Treccani in 1173,[1] according to the Enciclopedia Italiana in 1174, with a detail the same entry records thus: «In 1174 it was burned by Barbarossa, who nonetheless wished the house of the Count of Savoy to be spared».[6] In the subsequent divisions of Savoyard territory, beginning with that of 1235 in which Amadeus IV entrusted Thomas II with Piedmont south of Avigliana, Susa always remained under the direct authority of the Count of Savoy, with no interference from the Princes of Achaea.[6]

The modern era

A border town, Susa changed hands more than once: from 1536 to 1559 it was under French rule.[1] In 1796, under the Treaty of Paris, King Victor Amadeus III of the Kingdom of Sardinia was forced to demolish its fortifications; after the annexation of Piedmont to France the town remained under French rule until the Restoration.[6] The town's historical guide traces to Susa the origins of the dynasty that, in 1861, achieved the unification of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II.[4]

Susa today

The castle of Countess Adelaide is the hub of cultural life: the civic museum has a new layout with an archaeological route that starts at the Roman praetorium and climbs through the building's medieval and Savoyard layers, and it hosts a permanent exhibition on climate curated by the meteorologist Luca Mercalli.[10] The municipality promotes the archaeological area, the nearby Orsiera Rocciavrè nature park, and the stretch of the Via Francigena that runs through the town.[11]

The valley, some seventy kilometres long, remains a vital corridor between Italy and France, with facilities for winter tourism and industry,[1] and is crossed by the planned Turin-Lyon high-speed rail line, which includes an international station on the Susa plain.[12] In 2005, after the clashes at Venaus, a few kilometres from the town, the government temporarily withdrew the project and set up an Observatory with the local authorities; opposition from the No TAV Movement has continued since 1995 and has shaped the identity of a valley with nearly a hundred thousand inhabitants.[2] Susa is also a starting point for major cycling events: on 26 May 2018 it hosted the start of the twentieth stage of the Giro d'Italia, bound for Cervinia, the last truly decisive stage of that edition.[13]

Pages that link here

The Unione Montana Valle Susa's march against the Avigliana-Orbassano rail line (October 2026)

On 2 October 2026 the Unione Montana Valle Susa called a public march for Saturday 3 October, «Let's Stop the Avigliana-Orbassano Together», against the planned Avigliana-Orbassano railway line, running from Piazza XXV Aprile in Sant'Ambrogio di Torino to Piazza del Popolo in Avigliana.

Related articles: March «Let's Stop the Avigliana-Orbassano Together», 3 October 2026, No TAV Movement, Turin-Lyon, Unione Montana Valle Susa, Susa Valley

Timeline

  • — In Susa a girl falls from the bridge between Via Mazzini and Piazza IV Novembre into the Dora Riparia; rescued by emergency crews, she is airlifted to the CTO hospital in Turin, while the carabinieri investigate the circumstances of the incident. → TorinoToday CronacaQui Torino

Sources

  1. Treccani
  2. Il Post — 3 October 2024
  3. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  4. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  5. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  6. Treccani - Enciclopedia Italiana —
  7. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  8. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  9. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  10. Città di Susa - Visita Susa
  11. Città di Susa
  12. TELT - Tunnel Euralpin Lyon Turin — 15 April 2022
  13. Il Post — 26 May 2018
  14. TorinoOggi — 2 October 2026
  15. TorinoToday — 2 October 2026
  16. Quotidiano Piemontese — 2 October 2026

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