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Not only writer, Costantino Nigra (1828-1907) was a polyedric personality, poet, philologist, diplomatic, and politician. Cavours right hand in his diplomatic activity for the unification of Italy, then ambassador in Paris, Saint Peterburg, London, Vienna, in the end senator of the Italy Kingdom, and in the free time, free from his institutional business, he deeply studie the Canavese culture, his native lans.
Important work, philological and poetic, were the Canti popolari del Piemonte, which witness the deep research made by Nigra for collecting eldest popular songs, a really important work for the anthropological and dialectological studies of Piedmont. Really important, for anyone interested in writing in Piedmont language, the chapter dedicated to the orthographic rules applied for the texts transcription.
The historical Library of Palazzo Cisterna preserves, apart from periodical pubblications between 1858 and 1862 of the various songs, from Donna Lombarda to Barun Litrum, the final edition of the popular Songs for which Nigra worked for 35 years, finally published in Turin in 1888. In the Library can be also found Nigra's studies about the dialects of Valsoana and Viverone, about "low curial latin", and in the Parenti Fund the first edition (1875) of the Rassegna di Novara, a poem in which the author imagines king Carlo Alberto lookint at the great army of fallen in the battles for the homeland.