Words by Pat Eggleton - Pictures by Corrado Saurin
If you are going to be in Piedmont over the first weekend of October, you will be able to see a fascinating re-enactment of history if you head for the town of Pinerolo, near Turin.
Pinerolo is known as “the most French town in Italy” because it was under French control from 1536 – 74 and again from 1631 – 96 and from 1801 - 14.
But the town’s greatest claim to fame is that the mysterious French prisoner “the man in the iron mask” was held near there in the Fenestrelle Fortress from 1669 – 1681. Legend has it that the prisoner was escorted to Pinerolo by D’Artagnan and his Three Musketeers.
D’Artagnan and the Musketeers are, of course, fictional characters invented by Alexandre Dumas, père, but the story is loosely based on real events and people. We know that there really was a mysterious prisoner whose face was always hidden, probably by a black velvet cloth. This prisoner was arrested as Eustache Dauger but was probably a person of great importance as otherwise he would have been executed. It was Voltaire who claimed that the prisoner wore an iron mask behind the velvet cloth and that he was the elder half- brother of Louis XIV. In Dumas’s 1848 novel, “The Man in the Iron Mask”, the prisoner is identified as the King’s twin.
Whatever the truth may be, the people of Pinerolo are proud of their famous prisoner and every year, over the first weekend of October, the story is re-enacted. A different person plays the part of the prisoner every year and on the Sunday evening, in Pinerolo’s Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the mask is removed to reveal the wearer’s identity. Last year the “prisoner” was the actor and comedian Massimo Lopez.
For the twelfth edition of the re-enactment in 2010, there will be a proclamation of the event, with drummers escorted by the Musketeers, from 16.00 on Saturday 2nd October. Later there will be musical events and scenes from the seventeenth century will be acted out by local history groups.
From 21.00 “D’Artagnan” and the Musketeers will escort a group of “nobles” to the cell in the fortress where the sad prisoner was held.
On Sunday 3rd October there will be a special Mass in the morning and from the afternoon until midnight there will be special events throughout the town, including market stalls in Via Trieste.
The re-enactment of the story will take place in Piazza Vittorio Veneto from 15.00 – 19.00 and there will be a procession of people in period costume. The identity of the “prisoner” will be revealed at 18.30.
The real “man in the iron mask” died in the Bastille on 19th November 1703.
While you are in Pinerolo, do visit the eleventh century Duomo and the Church of San Maurizio, also dating from the eleventh century, where there is a Savoy family vault. This pleasant town also has several other medieval structures and some Baroque churches. The centre of town life is the Piazza Vittorio Veneto.
For further information about this event, please visit this page.
