History
1619 It all begins, as in any self-respecting story, with a symbolic date. 1619, a group of Cistercian monks go up the old Salt Road and decided to build a monastery on the ruins of a chapel built a century before their arrival. A shelter, a new land, a place of work, of prayer, of hours marked by the tolling of bells, of seasons which follow the same change of the earth’s cycles. Nature here reigns supreme. During the centuries the hill of San Maurizio became a place particularly fertile for more varied crops, from the vines to the ancient cereal grains, officinal herbs and spices from the nearby Mediterranean. The centuries respected the clever work of first inhabitants of the hill; today everything is still alive and is our pride, of which we are the keepers and of which you are the privileged recipients..
1862 The most fascinating places are those which resist the passage of time and that are reinvented whilst remaining faithful to their origins. In 1862, the monastery was bought by the Incisa Counts - a noble family of the surrounding valleysand transformed as a private house. Now a second anthology begins for San Maurizio: the dining hall becomes a jubilation of paintings, trompe l’oeil, hidden anecdotes and landscapes on the limits of reality. Nature becomes an ornament and the cloister is transformed in an Italian garden which fades over the belvedere on the horizon of the hills to the sea. Austerity is a memory softened by the colours of the fabrics, the warmth of the furnishings, from the fireplaces and by a more gentle nature. San Maurizio becomes a home for the first time, an oasis of privacy.
2002 After four years of conservative restoration that preserved to the best the patrimony left over the previous centuries, Relais San Maurizio comes to life. In 2002, the antique monastery and the noble house become a single soul under the five-star hospitality. The first luxury hotel of Piedmont is born, a true partnership between the art of hospitality, eno-gastronomic excellence and the search of well-being. All this takes shape thanks to an investment banker native of the Langhe, who wanted to give back, to the territory a precious page of history with passion and dedication. San Maurizio opens its doors to the world after four centuries of history and stories, and in ten years it becomes the reference point for refined hospitality, centre of culinary experimentation and guardian, at the same time, of ancient traditions. It opens the era of the good living.