Today is Saint Teodolinda: the day is dedicated to the Queen of the Lombards and of Italy from 589 to 624. The princess letingia (Longobard lineage more noble) wife of the king Autari and widow the year after the wedding was celebrated by works of art sumptuous and almost revered by the people enchanted by civilization encouraged by the queen driven by political sagacity, by courage and tenacity. The kingdom escaped the widowhood of Theodolinda and then continued together with Duke Agilulfo of Turin: the marriage was enlivened by the birth of Adaloaldo baptized by the Catholic rite. The event is unprecedented: the Lombard people polytheistic or prone to Arian heresy repudiated the Trinitarian dogma and Theodolinda professed Catholicism. The pastoral guide excluded on the Ambrosian diocese to the archbishops of Milan refugees in Genoa widened the tangle. Moreover, the schism ”of the three chapters” had dissuaded the metropolitan episcopal sees of Milan and Aquileia from Roman obedience and confused the Catholic community. Diplomacy managed by the Irish monk Colombano (leader at the cenobio in Bobbio, 614) and by Pope Gregory the Great was supported by the Queen to promote conciliation with the See of Rome and offer the Lombard and Italic peoples the political and religious peace vital for economic growth.
The resource fulness of Teodolinda is also supported by the decision to leave from the capital town Pavia for living in Monza. The legend, already denied, on the nail extracted from the True Cross, that is the structure used to crucify Jesus Christ, and joined to the Corona Ferrea exalts the appeal for the relic kept at the cathedral of Monza and chosen to bless several Lombard sovereigns and the Emperor Napoleon consecrated King of Italy (26 May 1805).
The trait d’union continues in Marengo on the lowland celebrated by the battle (14 June 1800) first almost lost by the French militias and then raised to the stature of cardinal triumph for the Napoleonic myth. The tower dedicated to Queen Teodolinda built at the dawn of 600 is, today, the oldest architectural work of the Lombard and Carolingian era based on the Alexandrian countryside lying east over the river Bormida. The pyramidal roof of porporine tiles is laid on the observatory incorporated in the curtis Marinco, the farm established to plan the rural territory at the age also defined by vassalage parallel to the turnover between Goths and Lombards.
The tower was donated by the Savoy duchess Bona Visconti to the jurist Filippo Stortiglione of an Alexandrian patrician family enrolled in the decurionate of Alexandria (13th century) and then holder of feudal jurisdiction over the village of Lobbi. Filippo was involved (5 February – 10 July 1870) by the municipality of Alessandria to negotiate the toll demanded by the House of Valperga, feudatory of Masio, and editor of statutes for the distinguished college of jurisconsults of Alessandria (1440). The historical reconstruction was extracted from the genealogy provided by Countess Stortiglione at the Marengo Pole.