Asti

Asti was a commune on the Tanaro plain in Piedmont. Its merchants and bankers had prospered on the Ligurian trade routes, and in 1337 the city remained a republic.

A Ghibelline coup in 1339 opened the way for Luchino Visconti of Milan to take control in 1340. Asti passed to the dukes of Orléans in Valentina Visconti's dowry in 1389 and to Savoy in 1531. France captured it in 1703, but Savoy retook it in 1705 and recovered it after the Napoleonic occupation in 1814.