1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mondovì

MONDOVÌ, a town and episcopal see of the province of Cuneo, Piedmont, Italy, 17 m. by rail E. of Cuneo. Pop. (1901), 5379 (town); 18,982 (commune). The lower town is 1283 ft. above sea-level, the upper 1834 ft. There is a school of the industrial arts and handicrafts, and majolica, paper, and silk cocoons are produced. The upper town contains the hexagonal piazza, a citadel, erected in 1573 by Emanuel Philibert, the cathedral of S. Donatus, a spacious episcopal palace, and higher up is a tower, the Belvedere, with a fine view. At the foot of the hill along the banks of the Ellero (a tributary of the Po) lie the industrial and commercial suburbs of Breo, Borgatto, Pian della Valle and Carassone, with their potteries, tanneries, paper-mills, marble-works, &c. The mansion of Count San Quintino in Pian della Valle was the seat of the printing-press which from 1472 issued books with the imprint Mons Regalis.

Mondovì—Mons Vici, Mons Regalis, Monteregale—did not take its rise till about A.D. 1000. The bishopric dates from 1388. About 2 m. to the east is the sanctuary of Vico, a church designed by Ascanio Vittozzi in 1596 and crowned by a famous dome (1730–1748), which has been declared a national monument. In the square before it is a monument (1891) to Charles Emmanuel I. of Savoy.

See L. Melano Rossi, The Sanctuario of the Madonna di Vico (London, 1907).