Location: Aosta Valley Map
Constructed: 13th century
Tel. (+39) 0165 76463
The castle of Fénis, located in the municipality of the same name,
is one of the most famous medieval manors in the Aosta Valley. Known
for its spectacular architecture, with the double crenellated walls
enclosing the central building and the numerous towers, the castle
is one of the major tourist attractions in the region and one of the
best preserved medieval castles in Italy.
Description
Unlike other manors in the region, such as Verrès and Ussel, built
on top of rocky promontories to be more defensible, the castle of
Fénis is located in a point completely devoid of natural defenses.
This leads us to think that its function was above all the
prestigious administrative headquarters of the Challant-Fénis family
and that the double wall also served above all as an ostentatious
function, to intimidate and amaze the population.
The origins
The position of the castle, on top of a hill
surrounded by a series of meadows, suggests that it may once have
been the seat of a Roman villa, but unlike the castle of Issogne,
where the same hypothesis has been confirmed by the remains of walls
found in the basement of the manor from the homonymous era, no
evidence of this theory has yet been found in Fénis.
The
castle is openly mentioned for the first time in a document dated
1242, in which a castrum Fenitii is indicated as the property of the
viscount of Aosta Gotofredo di Challant and his brothers, belonging
to one of the most important families in the Valle d'Aosta and
vassals of the Savoy, from which they also obtained the title of
viscount. At that time the manor probably included only the dovecote
tower on the south side and the square tower, a central housing body
and a single wall.
Aimone and Bonifacio
Most of the
construction work, which led to the castle taking on its current
appearance, took place between around 1320 and 1421. Aimone di
Challant inherited the feud and the castle of Fénis from his
grandfather Ebalo Magno in 1337 and in 1340 he began a first
campaign of works, creating a central pentagonal housing body -
probably obtained by incorporating pre-existing buildings - and the
external wall.
Compared to its current appearance, in
Aimone's time the southern tower was still missing and the interior
of the castle was very different. The central courtyard was much
larger and lacked the stone staircase, flanked to the north and
south by two long buildings that ended against the western wall.
Furthermore, the second floor of the building had to be completely
missing.
New construction works were commissioned by
Bonifacio I of Challant, son of Aimone, who inherited the castle
from his father in 1387. After having held the position of inspector
of fortifications at the Savoy court for two years, in 1392
Bonifacio began a new large campaign of construction in the manor,
in order to adapt it to the new standards of courtly life. During
this building campaign the floors of the central body were realigned
and a new floor was built from the attic. A new building was also
built to the west, giving the internal courtyard its current
appearance, with two floors of wooden galleries and a large
semicircular stone staircase.
The declining years
With the
death of Bonifacio I in 1426, a phase of economic decline began for
the Challant-Fénis family, which corresponded to a period of
building stagnation for the castle. His successor Boniface II
limited himself to commissioning the painter Giacomino da Ivrea to
paint the frescoes on the eastern side of the courtyard - including
one depicting St. George defeating the dragon, which assumed a
meaning of good luck for those who would leave along the Via
Francigena - not making no significant changes to the structure of
the manor. After him, for about two hundred and fifty years
practically no new buildings were built and the only interventions
concerned some frescoes in the courtyard and in one of the rooms to
the south, created in the 17th century.
In 1705, with the
death of Antonio Gaspare Felice, the last exponent of the
Challant-Fénis branch, the castle passed to his cousin Giorgio
Francesco di Challant Châtillon, who in 1716 had to sell it for
90,000 lire to Count Baldassarre Saluzzo di Paesana to deal with the
huge debts.
Thus began a period of true decline for the
castle and successive changes of ownership. It remained the property
of the Saluzzo di Paesanas until 1798, when it was sold to Pietro
Gaspare Ansermin, whose family kept it until 1863 and then sold it
to Michele Baldassarre Rosset di Quart. In the meantime the building
had been abandoned, stripped of its furniture and used as a
farmhouse, a stable on the ground floor and a barn on the first.
The nineteenth-century recovery and the present
On 3
September 1895 Giuseppe Rosset, Italian consul in Odessa and son of
Michele Baldassarre, gave the manor to the Italian State for 15,000
lire at the hands of Alfredo d'Andrade, who had been negotiating its
acquisition for years. The castle of Fénis had already been used by
d'Andrade a few years earlier as a model for the courtyard of the
medieval village of Turin.
Already in 1898 d'Andrade, a
follower of the principles of Viollet-le-Duc, began a first campaign
of works on the castle, which continued until 1920 under the
supervision first of d'Andrade himself and later of Bertea and
Seglie. The purpose of this campaign, also due to the limited funds
available, was above all to stop the deterioration of the castle,
securing the unsafe walls, redoing some roofs, restoring the attics
and windows and building a new access road to the east to the
castle.
A second restoration campaign took place starting
from 1935, by the then Minister of National Education Cesare Maria
De Vecchi and the architect Vittorio Mesturino, who wanted to
accentuate the medieval aspect of the castle, partially compromising
the readability of the structure original. During this work campaign
it was also decided to set up a museum of Aosta Valley furniture in
the castle, refurbishing the rooms now devoid of the original
furniture with a series of furniture found on the antiques market,
although not all of it really of Aosta Valley origin.
The
castle, declared a national monument in 1896 and now owned by the
regional administration of Valle d'Aosta, can only be visited on
guided tours.
Giuseppe Giacosa in his I Castelli Valdostani describes the castle of
Fénis as follows:
«Outside it is a bundle of towers that overlap,
some square and squat, the others round, thin, all crenellated, armed,
irabertesque, bristling with projections of every kind, which seem to
threaten abuses and violence, which challenge the traveler and they
shout to him: out, jagged the sky with bizarre profiles. Inside is an
intimate, silent cloister, all shadows, sober and correct in its unusual
shapes and rich colours. Seeing him from afar he has a petulant,
arrogant air; whoever enters it breathes the calm of the strong.
The castle consists of a pentagonal-shaped central body, probably due to
the need to incorporate pre-existing structures and to follow the
irregularities of the land, surrounded by a double crenellated wall
along which several turrets are positioned connected to each other by a
walkway . The largest towers, to the south and west, are equipped with
loopholes for arrows, and corbels to support the highest part. The wall
facing north, towards the main road that crossed the valley and
therefore the most exposed to possible attacks, was equipped with four
circular turrets, which became five following the restorations of the
thirties. You enter the structure through a portal that opens in the
walls on the south side and passes near one of the oldest towers of the
manor. This entrance was created during the renovation in the 1930s,
while the original entrance was probably near the square tower on the
west side.
After passing the walls you find yourself in a closed
courtyard, which surrounds the central structure. On the north-east side
of this courtyard there is a rectangular building once used as a stable,
while the access to the central housing body is located in
correspondence with the turret in the middle of the east side. The
central body is spread over three floors, which surround a quadrangular
internal courtyard, as well as the basement where the cellars and
prisons were located. The ground floor was intended for the castle
garrison and service rooms: in particular, there were the guardhouse,
the kitchen and a dining room. The first floor was reserved for the
lords of the castle and housed a kitchen, the lords' rooms, the court
and the chapel. Finally, the second floor was intended for servants and
guests of the manor. The manor could accommodate a total of about sixty
people including the lord's family, any guests, garrison and service
personnel.
Walking through the space within the first wall of the
castle, you can see some masks carved in stone on the walls above,
having an apotropaic function.
The center of the central inhabited body is the small quadrangular
courtyard built by Bonifacio I between the end of the 14th and the
beginning of the 15th century. In the center of the courtyard there is a
characteristic semicircular stone staircase, on top of which stands a
fresco depicting St. George killing the dragon, created around 1415 and
attributed to the workshop of Giacomo Jaquerio. The theme of Saint
George and the dragon was widespread at the time in the Aosta Valley, as
it was considered an embodiment of the chivalric ideal. The BMS monogram
can be seen on the fresco, interpreted as the initials of the client,
Bonifacium Marexallus Sabaudiae.
The courtyard, whose walls are
entirely frescoed with decorations in the international Gothic style, is
surrounded on three sides by a double wooden balcony on the two upper
floors. Along the walls of the balcony winds a series of sages, each
different from the other, holding parchments bearing proverbs and moral
maxims written in old French. In the past, the name of the character
depicted was indicated in correspondence with each of the essays, but
most of them are now illegible[36], among these essays a character in
Arab costume is also depicted, probably to commemorate Challant's
participation in a crusade.
The narrowest wall of the courtyard,
facing the fresco of San Giorgio, was decorated in the second half of
the 15th century by the painter Giacomino da Ivrea on behalf of Boniface
II of Challant, son of Boniface I, and depicts the saints Hubert,
Bernard, a holy bishop (perhaps San Teodulo), Santa Apollonia and
Sant'Ambrogio, an Annunciation and plant motifs. Below them is a
monumental San Cristoforo, whose attribution is made difficult by the
heavy restorations undergone. Since San Cristoforo is the protector of
travellers, his presence near the exit of the castle was perhaps
intended as a wish for a good journey to those leaving the manor.
The courtyard of the castle of Fénis was used by Alfredo d'Andrade
as a model for the Rocca del Borgo Medievale in Turin, built on the
occasion of the Italian General Artistic and Industrial Exhibition of
1884. The courtyard of the Rocca Medievale faithfully reproduces the
semicircular staircase, the wooden balconies, frescoes of saints and St.
George slaying the dragon.
The courtyard leads to a large rectangular room which occupies a
large part of the north side of the ground floor. This room, mentioned
as "grande salle basse" in an inventory drawn up in 1551, is today
called the armory due to the presence of a rack for spades. The room was
also equipped with a trap for those sentenced to death, which consisted
of a well with the walls covered with blades obtained in the circular
turret in the north-west corner. Currently in the room there is a model
of the castle and a large stone fireplace against the back wall. The
wooden ceiling in this as in most of the other rooms was redone during
the 20th century restoration works, while the stone fireplaces are part
of the castle's original furnishings.
The weapons room leads to
the dining room, so called after the museum was set up in 1936, while
the 1551 inventory defines it as "chambre basse". In the room there are
some tables and chairs from the 16th – 17th century.
Adjacent to
the dining room is what must have been the main kitchen of the castle,
as suggested by the presence of a monumental fireplace, whose function
must have been, in addition to cooking food, also to heat the rooms on
the upper floors and also the meeting room. The room has been furnished
with various types of wooden sideboards.
The south side of the
floor housed the well for the rainwater cistern, the woodshed and other
service rooms. Currently there is an agricultural cart and a series of
chests and chests.
The first floor, the most elegant and least cold of the manor, was
reserved for the lords of the castle. Here were their private rooms,
representative rooms and the chapel. On the north side, in
correspondence with the kitchen on the ground floor, there is a room
which, due to the presence of a large fireplace and a sink, suggests a
second kitchen, currently furnished with a series of chairs, seats and a
pair of nineteenth-century late gothic.
Next to the kitchen is
what is defined as the bedroom of the lord of the castle, called
"chambre blanche" in the inventory of 1551. The wall in common with the
kitchen houses a large stone fireplace with the family coat of arms
painted Challant. The room houses a series of inlaid cabinets and chests
and a canopy bed with twisted columns, a reproduction of a Tuscan model
from the end of the 16th century.
At the center of the south side
are the room which in the 1551 inventory is defined as "chambre des
tolles", furnished with some double-sided chests characterized by a
decorative facade on the front side, and the adjacent "cabinet de la
chambre des tolles ”, which houses a 16th-century bed and chest and a
19th-century chest, from the collection of the industrialist Riccardo
Gualino. Giustino Boson in his book The castle of Fénis calls these two
rooms respectively "dining room" and "lady's room". A clear
identification of the intended use of the rooms is made difficult by the
fact that almost all the original furniture has been lost over time and
that several rooms have changed their function over the centuries.
The southwest corner of the floor is occupied by the room defined as
"poelle", i.e. heated room, and today called the court. The current name
derives from the presence on the fireplace of a fresco depicting the
four cardinal virtues (Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance and finally
Justice, which stands out over the others) and the coat of arms of
Emanuele Filiberto I or Carlo Emanuele I, dukes of Savoy between 1559
and 1630. In the room there are currently some equipment chests
purchased in the 1930s in Saluzzo.
The entire north side of the first floor is occupied by a long
rectangular room called a chapel, one of the most evocative rooms in the
castle. In the past, the room was probably divided in two by a wooden
grate similar to the one present in the castle of Issogne, which
separated the actual chapel from the representative room called "salle
de la chapelle". The western side houses a large stone fireplace and the
walls of the long and western sides are decorated with geometric motifs
executed during the 20th-century restoration based on a 14th-century
fragment found by Alfredo d'Andrade near the fireplace. The room is
furnished with a set of late Gothic style furniture.
The east
side of the great hall probably housed the private chapel of the lords
of the castle. The beginning of the room is highlighted by a beam that
transversely crosses the large rectangular room. In correspondence with
it there is a precious wooden crucifix that recent restorations have
made it possible to attribute to the workshop of the Master of the Oropa
Madonna, from which several sacred sculptures come for Aosta Valley
churches between the end of the thirteenth century and the early
fourteenth century.
Unlike the geometric decoration of the rest
of the room, the side walls of the chapel are completely frescoed with
figures of saints and apostles arranged in two overlapping rows. The
back wall is divided in two by a large window with a crucifixion on the
right and a Madonna della Misericordia on the left.
At the feet
of the Madonna, protected by her cloak, there are two groups of faithful
separated into laymen (on the right of the viewer) and religious (on the
left of the viewer). Among them it is possible to recognize various
figures of the time, including the Pope and the Emperor, arranged
immediately next to the Virgin as the leader respectively of the
religious and the laity, and some members of the Challant family, such
as the commissioner of the works Bonifacio I (in the group of laymen
dressed in a red habit), Bonifacio's brother Amedeo of
Challant-Aymavilles and his young wife Luisa of Miolans.
The
frescoes in the chapel, as well as most of those in the courtyard, were
done in the International Gothic style in the first decades of the 15th
century and attributed to the school of the Piedmontese master Giacomo
Jaquerio. It is not certain whether Jaquerio personally worked on the
works, while the use of Jaquerian models seems certain.
The
recent restorations carried out on the frescoes in the chapel have
highlighted some details that suggest a certain hurry to finish the
work, such as the presence in the fresco of the crucifixion of the trace
of a kneeling figure in armor, which was never done.
The second floor of the castle, not accessible during guided tours,
was reached via a spiral staircase. It was intended for servants'
quarters, soldiers' quarters, guest rooms and attics. From the second
floor, through the tower on the west side, it was possible to go up to
the roof where there was a patrol path.
The roof, in stone lose,
is characterized by a double slope, the internal part of which conveys
the water towards the central courtyard below where it could be
collected in the cistern.
The castle in mass culture
Currently
the castle of Fénis is one of the main tourist attractions of the Aosta
Valley and is visited by more than 80,000 people every year.
In
1985 the exteriors of the film Fracchia against Dracula by Neri Parenti
were filmed in the castle. In 2006 the manor was used as a set for some
scenes of the television miniseries The Black Arrow.
In 1976, the
Italian Post Office dedicated a 150 lire stamp to the castle as part of
the fourth issue of the Tourist series.
In 2013, the Italian mint
dedicated a 10 Euro coin from the 'Italia delle arti' series with a
mirror finish to him. The castle is portrayed on the obverse while the
fresco of San Giorgio is represented on the reverse.