Fenis Castle (Castello di Fenis)

Fénis Castle

 

Location: Aosta Valley Map

Constructed: 13th century

Tel. (+39) 0165 76463

 

Description of Fenis Castle

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.

 

History

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.

 

The castle

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 courtyard

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 ground floor

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 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 chapel

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 and the roof

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.