La Torre di Berta

At the Tower is linked "The Legend of Bertha". It tells of Queen Bertha of Savoy, consort of Henry IV, traveling to Rome to obtain the imperial crown from the pope and her encounter with her namesake Bertha, a beautiful yet poor commoner who implored mercy for Raniero, her imprisoned man, bringing as a gift a skein of thread. The queen, moved to pity, granted freedom to the prisoner and as much land as could be enclosed with the skein of thread that the skillful spinner had given her. Soon word spread of the queen's compassionate act, and many other women came to the castle to obtain the same benefit, but the queen responded with the famous saying "it is no longer the time when Bertha spun."