Ricetto di Exilles

At the foot of the Alps, the Ricetto di Exilles is a fortified medieval grain store, a practical sort of monument. Its buildings rise two or three storeys, their ground floors often given over to semi-basements with external access, and peripheral structures hiding cellars beneath. Inside, the variety is telling: floors of stone, wood, or brick tiles; ceilings and vaults of differing construction; staircases of hard stone with stone treads, or of wood. Incised into the fabric are dates and monograms, the small signatures of builders or owners over centuries. This is no grand palace but a working compound, a collective granary built for storage and security. The ricetto typology is peculiar to the region: a walled enclosure of multi-storey warehouses, designed to shelter a community’s harvest and valuables in times of trouble. Here, the patched and varied surfaces speak of long use, of generations who stored, repaired, and left their mark.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.