More information about the farm: the Rul Monastery lies on a hillside that can easily be seen from the viewpoint in Albugnano ,following the north-west direction in the straight line of the Rose mountain.
The place indicated on the adress (Vezzolano 57 ) reminds us of the ancient routes, which tracks linking them to the boundary valley, where the famous romanesque monument S. Mary of Vezzolano stands, still emerge from what has now become the surrounding woods.
The legend says that S. Mary of Vezzolano was built by will of Charlemagne and it is less than half kilometer far. In the distant skyline your glance embraces the Alp chain with the Gran Paradiso, the Rocciamelone, l'Orsiera Rocciavré, standing out all the way to the east side of the Lombard Alps in a breathtaking view of the Rose mountain and the CervinoPyramid ,so close it seems you can touch them on clear sunny days.
And, indeed the rose mountain takes its name after the flamboyant color that glows in the sky at a height of nearly 5000mt.
The farm is an antique building and was restored by state of the art. The documents in Asti date it back to the year 1600,and it certainly was built on a pre-existing foundation that is still visible.
The roots of its name are just as mysterious as they are evocative. Rul, the so-called mythical oak, sacred to the Druids and Jupiter, has always been a name that belongs to this place. Here, lay the first human establishment on the border of a hornbeam and oak wood.
Mentionned as Ruffo or Rufo, typical roman names that probably stem from Rufus, a colon who like Albonius came to settle on this land, south of the river Po at the same time as Augustus.
As a matter of fact, the whole area was intensely colonized in the 1st century A.C. by colonies applying the latin law between Hasta ( Asti ) and Augusta Taurinorum ( Turin ), on the passage to Augusta Pretoria ( Aosta ) to civilize territories that had been dominated by Gallic and Celtic people for centuries.
Not far from the Po banks, they built, as if they could predict what would happen 19 centuries later, the famous "industry"Monteu da Po, seat of the roman smelting factory and the iron manufacture, stretching throughout the whole roman Piedmont.

Rufius and Albonius may even have imported from the Lazio and Campania Felix regions, the mediterranean vine (still there ) and the very Italian olive tree, which by strange circumstances, has survived since the roman times only in this part of Piedmont, thanks to a very special micro-weather with winters almost as mild as those of the Liguria seaside.
Almost certainly "Ligure and Spanio-Celtic" people were the first inhabitants of this territory. Then came the celtic and gallo-romans.
Later, in the middle-age, even the roman house of Ruffus will take the german appearance and name of Rolf, becoming the Rolfo Farm of the Monferrato Piedmont , under which name it is reported on the documents in Asti in 1600.