Italian Tourist Web Guide ? 1996/97 by ITWG.COM
(Provided by Azienda di promozione turistica del Trentino)
Read also : Trentino, Tourist Guide
How can we get to know in the best possible and most effective way a cultural, historical and artistic heritage of great importance and rare charm, but also of considerable complexity?
The answer is in this guide, which not only proposes and illustrates the four most important itineraries in the Trentino castle landscape, but above all picks out the castles to visit and describes their features and functions, how to get to them, information references, opening hours and admission charges. A new way to explore and get to know Trentino.
VALLE DELL'ADIGE
Sabbionara d'Avio is the first castle one comes to in Trentino when arriving from the south. It is an example of fourteenth century castle architecture influenced by the Veneto style of the Della Scala family. The refined taste and culture of the Castelbarco family, and in particular of the great William I, were epitomised in this castle, starting from the late Middle Ages.
It is a very "Veronese" lord's residence and was undoubtedly intended to emulate the Della Scala family. The masonry blends well with the grey limestone of Mount Baldo and this elegance is also repeated in the fortifications, such as the tall and mighty keep.
In Sabbionara castle one might recognise the development of a prehistoric hillfort and then a Roman fortification. Indeed it is very old. Already in the middle of the 12th century it belonged to the Castelbarco family, at the height of their power between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
In 1441, with the jurisdictions of the FourVicariates (Ala, Avio, Mori and Brentonico) the Castelbarco bequeathed the castle to the Venetians who extended and raised it. Only in the seventeenth century, after being in the hands of the Tridentine prince bishop, did the fortress return to the Castelbarco who, unfortunately, in 1812, began dismantling it to adorn their new home in Loppio.
Beyond the entrance tower, the castle appears as a well-constructed sequence of buildings with vineyards marking the remains of the elaborate composition of the "lower castle": the guardhouse and the "picador" tower, set in the curtain wall. In the background the impressive fa,cade of the lord's residence.
The two frescoed cycles, in international Gothic style of fourteenth century Veronese culture, are particularly interesting: the "Combatants' Parade" in the guardhouse and the "Room of Love" on the top floor of the keep.
Since 1977, the castle is the property of the F.A.I., the Fund for the Italian Environment which has carried out, in collaboration with the Autonomous Province of Trento, careful and intelligent restoration work. Today all of it can be visited.
Location: from Sabbionara d'Avio, up a steep road to the car park at the foot of the castle. From there the entrance is only a few minutes' walk.
Open all year except in January. From February to September open 10.00 am - 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm - 6.00 pm, from October to December open 10.00 am - 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm. Closed on Mondays.
Information: Tel. 0464/684453
There is no doubt that the Romans used the hill of the primitive Rhaetian hillfort on the banks of the Leno to guard three valleys: so the fortress was a stockade and then became a castle.
All Rovereto's history is enclosed in this castle, also called Castel Veneto, from the time of the Castelbarco family to the First World War. On the primitive medieval plan built by the Castelbarco family and especially William the Great, the Venetians built, between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the powerful military fortress we can admire today.
With the arrival of the Serenissima in Vallagarina, Rovereto rapidly developed into an advanced military base and trading post. This "intrusiveness" naturally upset the archduke, Sigismondo, count of the Tyrol. This led to the "Roveretan war" at the end of the fifteenth century.
As a result the castle was fortified by the Venetians who duly carried out the work erecting bastions and mighty towers. It is quite evident that its construction, the work of famous military architects, was conceived bearing in mind the revolution created in warfare by the introduction of firearms.
The three circular bastions, with huge sloping walls and artillery pillboxes lower down, were able to defend each other. The pieces placed in the gun-loops higher up were used to keep attackers at a distance.
The smooth shape of the walls mitigated the force of the shots fired against it. The storage well sunk in the rock to a depth of 57 metres is evidence of the long battles waged.
At the end of the eighteenth century the castle was occupied by Napoleon's French soldiers, then by the Austrians who used it as a fortified barracks thus maintaining its original warlike appearance in all the moats, wallwalks, secret passages and other military preparations.
Location: in Rovereto follows the signs for Terragnolo and Vallarsa (Schio, Vicenza), on foot from Piazza Podest?, via della Terra, via Castelbarco.
Open from April to November 8.30 - 12.30 am and 2.00 - 6.00 pm
Information: Tel. 0464/438100
Also known as Castelnuovo Lagarino, Castel Noarna, in the heart of that little "paradise" of nobility around Nogaredo, is extremely old. Probably there-was a prehistoric hillfort on the hill and then a fortified Roman site guarding the road passing nearby.
After the turbulent events of the Middle Ages, when the castle families of the area allied against Redbeard, the castle passed, at the end of the 13th century, into the hands of the Castelbarco family, one of Trentino's most powerful noble dynasties. In 1456 the Castelbarco were driven out by their eternal rivals, the Lodron family, who continued to live there for many centuries. An important role in the history of the castle was played by Nicolo Lodron who was invested with the fief in 1532. He was married twice, first to Gentilia Countess of Arco and then to Beatrice di Castellalto.
During this period Nicolo turned the castle into what we can see today. He had new sections built, the frescoes of the Michelangelesque school painted on the starway and those of the winter garden in which the coat of arms of the Lodron, the Castellalto and the Arco families stand out. Inside a corridor some metres long leads to the dark and gloomy secret cell where an unknown, but considerable number of prisoners died. In 1647, on the night of 17 February, the castle was the scene of the famous Nogaredo witches' trial, after which, as the chronicles record, "Menega Sandri, Menegotta Chemella and her daughter Lucia all from Villa, and Ginevra Zampicoli and Caterina Barona, both from Castellano, died as witches beheaded and burnt on the stones of Villa. All confessed and communicated three days before".
The Lodron family held jurisdiction over Castelnuovo-Castellano until 1826 and renounced their feudal rights in 1842.
Location: The castle is about 2 km from the Rovereto Nord motorway exit. From here head for Villalagarina following the signs leading to Lago di Cei. Then take the road to Noarna where the castle stands 500 m away.
Information: Tel 0464/435454
Beseno is the most majestic Trentino castle and looks like a fortified town, spread across the hill closing the valley of Rio Cavallo, towards Folgaria, where it enters the Valle dell'Adige. Towers, battlemented glacis, huge crescent-shaped bastions and blunted barbicans alternate in the elongated outline of the stronghold's profile. Two curtain walls surround the fortress forming a large ellipse with a major axis of 250 metres (55 the minor one).
The sixteenth century fortifications, made in consequence of the introduction of fire-arms, consist of three impressive bastions (north, south and in the middle) as well as many cannon emplacements, with three perfectly aligned gun-loops in the western wall. On the eastern side the tournament field, a vast meadow is enclosed by thick walls with loop-holes. Having passed through the dark gatehouse, the first courtyard and the large square, you come to the central nucleus, the residence of the castle lords: the Marcabruno residence and the residence of the months with a fifteenth century frescoed cycle.
Originally a princely fief, with three medieval units enfeoffed to the Beseno lords, at the beginning of the 14th century the castle came within the Castelbarco's orbit. They kept it, by then joined into one formidable complex, until the second half of the following century when it was bought by Jacopo Trapp, a German gentleman in the service of the archduke of Austria. For a long time the people of Folgaria fought against the Trapps whose hired ruffians and warriors terrorised the whole of the highland. The episodes of intolerance and rebellion continued throughout the 1600s, encouraging gloomy legends. The last battle in which Beseno played a leading role was in 1796 between Napoleon and the Austrians. A column of Tyrolean light infrantry soldiers surrounded the stronghold and forced the 4,000 French soldiers to surrender.
Location: at Besenello along a narrow road to the car park at the foot of the strong-hold, or twenty minutes on foot along an easy pathway (a shuttle bus runs on Saturdays and holidays).
Open from April to October 9.00 - 12.00 am and 2.00 - 5.30 pm. Closed on Mondays.
Information: Tel. 0464/84600
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