Oro Incenso Mirra — Presepi nel Monferrato

Why it's special

It began as one villager's idea, borrowed from a nativity festival he had seen in France, and turned into a community effort: residents, a care home and the Montemagno schools build the cribs, and the village of Ruchè gets a reason to be visited in the quietest weeks of the year. Castagnole is the home of the wider Oro Incenso Mirra circuit, which links nativity trails across several Monferrato villages.

Programme · 2026

11th edition of the nativity exhibition at Tenuta La Mercantile, listed in the Comune di Castagnole Monferrato's 2026 programme of events. The day-by-day programme of workshops, shows and the Epiphany afternoon is usually published in late November / early December.

• Open on Sundays, public holidays and the days before them, 10:00–12:00 and 14:30–18:00 (closed 25–26 December and 1 January), or by appointment on 338 3000566.
• Free entry.
• Come on 6 January for the Befana treasure hunt and the big tombola.
• Tenuta La Mercantile is also the Ruchè estate that hosts the May Festa del Ruchè, so the visit pairs well with a glass.

For a month around Christmas the rooms of Tenuta La Mercantile, the Ruchè estate in Castagnole Monferrato that also hosts the May Festa del Ruchè, turn into a nativity show. Oro Incenso Mirra — gold, frankincense and myrrh — gathers dozens of handmade presepi: scenes built from recycled odds and ends, mechanised cribs with moving figures, period settings, and the work of the residents of the local care home and the schoolchildren of Montemagno.

It started with Fulvio Durando, who had seen a village nativity festival in France and wondered whether Castagnole could do the same. The answer became an association, and the association became a circuit: Castagnole is the home of a wider Oro Incenso Mirra trail that links nativity displays across several Monferrato villages over the holidays. The point, as its organisers put it, is to bring people to the hills in the weeks when almost nothing else is on, and to give the village something to build together.

Around the exhibition there are weekend workshops, a children's play, a Christmas concert, and on Epiphany afternoon a Befana treasure hunt followed by a tombola. Entry is free; check the opening days above, as it is open on Sundays, holidays and the days before them rather than every day.