The Castello di Lodrone, also known as Castello Santa Barbara, was the oldest of the Lodron residences.
Castello di Lodrone, also known as Castello Santa Barbara
THE MYSTERIOUS ORIGINSThe Lodrone’s rock origins, or Santa Barbara’s Castle, are still today shrouded in a mistery. It is not clear whether the citation “Castrum de summo lacu”, found in a document from 1086, has to be referred to the mistery, or to the San Giovanni’s Castle, located in the opposite side of Storo plain over a rock which overlooks at Idro lake.
THE COUNTS OF LODRONThe Lodrone’s castle, or rock, named by 1600 as Santa Barbara’s too, was been the seat of the House of Counts, starting at least by the second half of the 12th century, as it seems by a document from 1185 in which a so called “Calapino” from Lodrone, appears as a Feudal Lord of the Appiano’s Counts.
A few years later document, (1189) described the Prince-Bishop of Trento who invested in Lodrone’s castle 13 men from Storo: they took over Lodrone’s Calapino. In the documents regarding the centuries after, the rock appears again as property of Lodrone’s Counts.
THE MILITARY STRONGHOLDOver time, the castle was gradually left, starting from the 16th century, due to the fact that the Counts preferred to stay in the comfortables residences down the valley, built near the Caffaro’s river (Caffaro’s Palace) and near Lodrone (Bavaria’s Palace).
Romano’s Castle (Pieve di Bono-Prezzo) and San Giovanni’s Castle (Bondone) share a construction typology where the main characters are militar. They present in fact typical elements of a stronghold, mainly because it has been built in the centuries in which residential and warlike features were united in a single architectural solution.
THE WALLSThe walls are compact, without openings, and erected with huge granite boulders, carely worked in order to avoid all the possibilities of disjunctions.
In many places it is more than two metres thick, while regarding the height, it developes about 6 metres. The layout follows a broken line and is closely connected to keep the tower in such a way as to present itself as a castle-tower with a polygonal perimeter and spur extending towards the mountain.
The access to the castel was granted by only one door which allowed to reach the court, while a second door brought to the tower.
THE INNER SPACESThe internal structures are nearly damaged at all, so just the fantasy and the imagination of the visitators who observ the empty round-headed windows with roughly ashlar-worked frames, can guess the original assett of the huge and squared tower-building. On the north side of it, a small tower with extreme defendig functions was leant. Beside the tower, in a southerly and easterly direction, the fortified complex was completed by several buildings, probably intended for services, and a small semicircular tower.
THE SIEGEIn 1439 the castle was conquered by Piccinino after a violent bombardment. Probably the decoration with stone cannonballs embedded in the masonry warp, dates back to the later reconstruction.
THE LAST CERTIFICATIONSThe Acts visited from 1727 to 1768 mention the chapel of St Barbara that was located inside the castle.
