In the music room of Castello di Casotto, in Garessio, Cuneo, you can admire a painting attributed to Van Dyck (or a member of his school anyway) depicting a lady, called La Dama in Fiero (black). The painting, arrived in Garessio from the Turin castle of Agliè, of magnificent workmanship, enjoys a strange reputation. A legend tells that on some nights, the ghost of the woman, dressed in a seventeenth-century black dress, came out of the painting and wandered around the rooms of the castle, predicting misfortunes to the members of the royal family she met. In the nineteenth century, when the castle was purchased and restored by Carlo Alberto di Savoia to make it his summer residence, the painting was not removed. Some say that possibly even the real Piedmontese had the luck / misfortune to meet the lady, and, almost certainly, to meet her was Princess Maria Clotilde, which bedroom was located next to the music room.
Completely different, and much older, is the story of the Lady of the Ponte Rosa which boasts medieval roots. At that time the village started from Porta Rose and more precisely from a castle of which today only a tower and some fortified walls remain. A legend tells that from a window in the towers of that castle, centuries ago, a Lady threw a red rose to an enemy knight who was passing at the foot of the tower. The knight, unaware and flattered, bowed to pick up the flower but was pierced by an arrow and fell dying to the ground. His blood flowed copiously mingling with the red of the petals of the flower that now gives its name to the ancient city gate. There are those who assume that the ghost of the Lady of the Pink Bridge can still wander near the door where once there was the drawbridge.
