Location: Fontanellato, Parma Map
Constructed: 13th- 15th century
Open: Oct- March 9:30- 11:45am and 3- 6:15 pm Tue- Sun
Rocca Sanvitale or Sanvitale Castle is a medieval castle surrounded
by a moat in the city of Fontanellato, Parma region of Italy. Rocca
Sanvitale or Sanvitale Castle was constructed in 13th- 15th century
by the orders of Count of Sanvitale. Initially the citadel was a
designed as a protected residence for the counts, his families as
well as borders of the former Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. However
over time it lost much of its military use due to changing
technologies of gun powder. Eventually Rocca Sanvitale became simply
a rich and impressive house of the counts. Many of the walls inside
Rocca Sanvitale are covered by beautiful frescoes.
One of
the masterpieces is the frescoes of Diane and Acteon that was
painted by Parmigianino in 1523- 24. He did his work for the Count
Galeazzo Sanvitale and his wife Paolo Gonzaga. It depicts ancient
Roman myth of Diane, goddess of hunters. She fell in love with
beautiful mortal Acteon, but young man refused her life. Vengeful
goddess turned him into a deer and his own dogs chased and ripped
him apart into pieces. Sanvitale Castle was in possession of the
Sanvitale family until 1948 when it was sold to the municipality. It
was turned into a museum. Today Rocca Sanvitale open to the public.
The original fortification to defend the village of "Fontana Lata"
was erected starting in 1124 at the behest of the Marquis Oberto I
Pallavicino, who obtained the feud following an exchange of land with
the Marquises Folco and Ugo I d'Este. In 1145 Oberto ceded the tower and
its territory to the municipality of Piacenza.
In the 14th
century the Viscontis took possession of the fortress, which in 1378
Gian Galeazzo Visconti granted to the Guelphs Sanvitale as compensation
for their loyalty.
In 1386 the new feudal lords started building
a new castle around the ancient tower; the walls were completed around
1400 and in 1404 the duke of Milan Giovanni Maria Visconti raised the
territory of Fontanellato to the rank of county, officially investing
the brothers Giberto and Gian Martino Sanvitale.
In 1482, during
the war of the Rossis, the fortress was attacked by Rossi's troops.
In 1551, during the Parma war, the castle was attacked by imperial
soldiers, who were repulsed.
The castle was later enlarged and
transformed into an elegant noble residence, full of important works of
art and frescoes; the structure was almost completed in its current form
in the 16th century.
In the early seventeenth century the
fortress suffered an attack by the Spanish army, which caused damage to
the fortifications; consequently the court engineer Smeraldo Smeraldi
was in charge of the arrangement of the moat, over which a new masonry
bridge was built to replace the ancient drawbridge.
In 1611 Count
Alfonso II Sanvitale was accused of having participated in the alleged
conspiracy against Duke Ranuccio I Farnese, which involved the
confiscation of all his property and the death sentence of all the
nobles involved. Only after a few years of his cousin Alessandro II
Sanvitale, as a sign of gratitude from the Farnese, was he allowed to
purchase the fortress of Fontanellato from the Ducal Chamber of Parma.
In 1688 Count Alessandro III Sanvitale transformed the ground level
of the ancient entrance keep into a chapel, which had been used as a
woodshed at the beginning of the century following the movement of the
entrance to the adjacent tower; the previous oratory located on the
other side of the central courtyard was also modified, while some rooms
on the first floor were restructured; the current large clock was
finally built on the front of the high tower, replacing another
instrument dating back to the 16th century.
Other small
interventions were carried out in the 18th century, when the French
windows with wrought iron balconies were opened on the façade and on the
towers.
Around 1830, Count Luigi Sanvitale had some bodies added
in more recent times on the south-west side demolished, to create a
hanging garden dedicated to the goddess Flora on the terrace thus
created.
In 1878 the fortress was restored restoring some of the
medieval elements lost over the centuries; the works involved the
internal courtyard in particular, where the loggias were rearranged and
some windows were opened in the neo-Gothic style.
Towards the end
of the 19th century, the last count Giovanni Sanvitale had the south
tower transformed into an optical chamber. In 1948 he sold the fortress
to the municipal administration of Fontanellato, which later started the
restoration work to use it as a municipal seat and open some rooms to
the public.
In 1999, 11 other restored rooms on the ground floor
were made open to visitors, following the movement of the municipal
offices and the archives that were located there.
The castle, entirely surrounded by a moat fed by resurgence water,
develops on a square plan around a central courtyard, with four corner
towers, three of which are cylindrical.
The main facade, entirely
covered in brick like the rest of the structure, is preceded by the
seventeenth-century masonry access bridge, which leads to the high
central tower. Above the large entrance portal with a round arch, two
French windows open symmetrically with a small wrought iron balcony. At
the top stands a large seventeenth-century clock with an internal and
external dial, restored in 1997; the single golden hand, enriched with
the central representation of the Sun, is connected to three bells,
which mark the passage of time according to a complex scheme; the outer
dial indicates 12 hours with Roman numerals, the half hours with spears
and the quarter hours with lines. To crown it, Ghibelline battlements
rise along the perimeter of the tower and of the entire castle, partly
covered by roofs.
To the left of the access tower, a second
smaller tower rises overhanging, which originally served as a keep and
as an entrance to the fortress; halfway up the masonry still shows the
signs of the blinded dovetail merlons and closed bolts of the
drawbridge, which connected through the central portal with a round arch
to the primitive entrance hall, later transformed into the chapel of San
Carlo .
At the southern end there is a small cylindrical tower
with corbels and machicolations, on the edge of the hanging garden; the
small terraced structure, originally used as a prison on several levels,
has housed the optical chamber commissioned by Count Giovanni Sanvitale
since the end of the 19th century. Next to it the nineteenth-century
hanging garden develops behind the crenellated curtain, which opens
outwards through some lowered arches carved into the masonry. At the
west end rises a second cylindrical tower, equal to the previous one.
To the right of the access tower, the north-east wing of the castle
stands on three levels, culminating on the eastern corner with a
two-storey cylindrical tower, enriched by the French door with a small
balcony opened in the 18th century.
The north-eastern side is
characterized by the presence on the noble floor of an elegant loggia
with round arches, raised on small stone and marble columns with
capitals; the internal walls are decorated with Renaissance frescoes. At
the north end rises a single-storey quadrangular tower, crowned by a
terrace hidden by battlements, which continues along the entire
north-western elevation.
Opposite the entrance to the fortress
rise the Gothic Scuderie Sanvitale, erected in the 15th century for
defensive reasons and subsequently transformed into the stables of the
castle, replacing those up until then located in the basement of the
fortress.
The entrance hall is covered by a barrel vault
decorated with frescoes dating back to the early 16th century, when the
entrance was moved from the original keep; the decorations, rediscovered
and partially repainted in 1840, depict a series of coats of arms of
families connected to the Sanvitales.
The internal courtyard, entirely covered in bricks, is flanked to the
north-east by a fifteenth-century portico with round arches, supported
by a brick colonnade with notched cube capitals; the main floor opens
onto the courtyard through an elegant arched loggia supported by slender
stone columns with Corinthian capitals; the upper level is also
characterized by the loggia with round arches, resting on small brick
columns with notched cube capitals.
The cross-vaulted portico
also continues on the north-west side, with lowered arches supported by
massive brick pillars with thin terracotta capitals; the noble floor has
a series of large pointed arch windows bordered by large terracotta
frames, in neo-Gothic style, while the upper level overlooks it with
smaller round arched openings.
The other fronts, wi
The fifteenth-century staircase to the side of the entrance hall,
closed by a barrel vault, leads to the loggia on the noble floor,
characterized by the series of cross vaults covering.
The two
lunettes placed on the doors of the opposite short sides are decorated
with twin frescoes depicting a Putto with festoon, painted by Felice
Boselli towards the end of the 17th century in the theater built in 1678
on the initiative of Count Alessandro III Sanvitale next to the stables
and demolished around the 1800 at the behest of Count Jacopo; the two
paintings were then detached and placed in their current location.
The loggia on the noble floor leads directly to
the large Weapons Hall, covered by a ribbed vault with lunettes,
entirely decorated with frescoes dating back to the end of the 16th
century; the decorations, partially repainted in 1861 by Giovanni
Gaibazzi and Giuseppe Bossi, are attributable to an unknown
sixteenth-century Emilian painter.
In the centre, the frescoes
depict a large coat of arms of the Bourbons of France, surrounded by
various plant intertwinings; other ovals on the sides frame Temperance
with a mirror and Fame with the coat of arms of the Sanvitale, Meli Lupi
and Gonzaga families; the 22 lunettes are decorated with the classic
mythological representations of Mercury with torch and winged helmet,
half-naked Venus with blindfolded love, Mars, Bacchus, Neptune, Diana,
Ceres with ears of corn, Vulcan with hammer and anvil, Juno , Jupiter,
Europa with the bull, Minerva, Apollo with the cithara, the four
Seasons, a Bacchante, a Nymph with a triton, a Maiden with a torch, a
King with a scepter and a female figure with a theatrical mask. Below
runs along the entire perimeter an epigraph in Latin of supplication to
the gods of Olympus, which underlines the protection guaranteed to the
Sanvitales by the king of France.
The Renaissance stone fireplace
is decorated on the hood with a large embossed coat of arms of the
Sanvitales and the counts of Somaglia, affixed following the marriage
between Luigi Sanvitale and Corona Somaglia Stopazzola which took place
towards the end of the 16th century.
The room houses a series of
weapons dating back to the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries; there are
various daggers, swords, spears, crossbows and pistols, as well as
shields, flags and numerous walking sticks.
The furnishings
consist of two valuable sixteenth-century chests, enriched with the
Sanvitale coats of arms, some contemporary wooden caskets and
seventeenth-century wardrobes, tables and chairs; a rare chest still
functioning, dating back to the end of the 16th century, is finally
placed on one side of the room.
Loggia
The Sala delle Armi
overlooks the loggia on the north-east side, decorated on two walls with
frescoes depicting some landscapes and grotesque motifs, painted around
1590 by Cesare Baglioni; the third side is decorated with a monochrome
frieze dating back to the early 16th century.
The paintings, now
partially damaged, were covered up during the late 19th-century
renovation of the fortress, when the room was transformed into an
external living room, and were rediscovered at the end of the 20th
century.
The second room overlooking the loggia is
also covered by a ribbed vault with lunettes, decorated with frescoes
dating back to the 19th century; the paintings in the lunettes depict
numerous coats of arms of the Sanvitale family and their related
families.
The large Renaissance fireplace placed between the two
windows is decorated with a sculpted frieze representing a series of
human faces between the triglyphs and, at the ends, two lions' heads;
the hood is also decorated with a fresco depicting the family tree of
the Sanvitales, in which the inscription "Virtus ubique refulgit" stands
out.
The furnishings consist of three large sideboards and a
seventeenth-century table, which display a collection of ceramics,
largely decorated with the coat of arms of the Sanvitale counts; the
pieces, made in Parma, Piedmont, Lombardy, England and Germany, mainly
date back to the 18th century; on display are also two apothecary jars
from the ancient apothecary of San Giovanni di Parma.
Lastly, two
large oils depicting still lifes, painted by Felice Boselli around 1690,
hang on the walls.
The third room opening onto
the loggia is covered by a fifteenth-century ceiling with wooden beams,
decorated with the coats of arms of numerous families hosted in the
Sanvitale fortress.
One wall is enriched by a fireplace in red
Verona marble, with simple lines.
The furnishings consist of the
large central nineteenth-century billiard table, the contemporary sofas
and the polychrome scagliola table dating back to the early eighteenth
century.
Finally, three large oils hang on the walls, two of
which depict still lifes, painted by Felice Boselli around 1690, and one
representing a battle, painted by Ilario Spolverini in the same period.
Next to the billiard room there is
a small room dedicated to the Duchess of Parma Maria Luigia, where
numerous souvenirs related to her sovereign are kept, collected by her
daughter Albertina di Montenuovo, wife of Count Luigi Sanvitale.
The cases show the funeral plaster casts of the face and hand of the
duchess and her morganatic husband Adam Albert von Neipperg, father of
Albertina; there is also a sculpture depicting the Hand of Maria Luigia
with a flower on her wrist, made by Antonio Canova in 1820.
Among
the Duchess's other personal items are some rider caps, a small umbrella
and a pair of gold-embroidered velvet shoes; a collection of Murano
glass and Bohemian crystals dating back to the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th
centuries is also on display.
The room is enriched by an
eighteenth-century fireplace and two contemporary tables, as well as
numerous paintings on the walls, including portraits of Albertina di
Montenuovo, of Guglielmo Alberto di Montenuovo, her brother, of the King
of Rome Napoleon II of France, her half-brother, and Count Stefano
Sanvitale, her husband's grandfather; the drawings depicting the hunting
horn professor Giovanni Puzzi, executed by Paolo Toschi, the count
Jacopo Sanvitale, created by Alberto Ziveri, and the count Stefano
Sanvitale, engraved by Antonio Dalcò are also exhibited.
The billiard room also leads to the small room of oriental costumes, where, among others, some late eighteenth-century paintings depicting oriental costumes and a Holy Family, painted by Giovanni Gaibazzi in 1861, are on display.
Next
to the hall of oriental costumes is the elegant reception room, covered
by a fine ceiling with wooden beams, painted towards the end of the 17th
century; a little further down, along the perimeter of the room runs a
high frieze frescoed by Felice Boselli around 1687, depicting a series
of flowers and landscapes inside ovals flanked by the Griffins of the
Sanvitales.
The furnishings consist of eighteenth-century wall
tables, sofas and chairs in the Louis XVI style, a harpsichord painted
on the inside of the lid with a river landscape and a rare
seventeenth-century historiated casket.
On the walls, in addition
to the baroque gilded mirrors, various paintings hang, including the
portraits of Federico Sanvitale, attributed to Felice Boselli, of
Dorotea Sofia of Neuburg, attributable to Giovanni Maria delle Piane
known as "il Molinaretto", by Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, copied from an
original by Francesco Bonsignori, and a princess Gonzaga, by an unknown
author; there is also an oil on display depicting a View of the Rocca di
Fontanellato, painted by Giuseppe Alinovi in the second half of the 19th
century.
The reception room gives access to the
bridal chamber, covered by a fine seventeenth-century wooden coffered
ceiling, coming from the nearby sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the
Holy Rosary.
The monumental sixteenth-century fireplace is
entirely carved with caryatids, friezes and, in the centre, the
Sanvitale coat of arms.
The impressive furnishings consist of a
seventeenth-century bed richly carved with floral motifs, cherubs and
coats of arms, a contemporary wardrobe with a sculpted gable, a desk
with a period seat, an eighteenth-century inlaid chest of drawers
attributed to Giovan Battista Galli and some nineteenth-century
neo-Renaissance stools.
Numerous paintings hang on the walls,
including the seventeenth-century portraits of the Countess Barbara
Sanseverino, the Marquise Marta Tana and the Abbot Carlo Ferrari; to
these are added a copper painting depicting a praying Madonna, made in
1673 by Tommaso Missiroli, and a seventeenth-century Madonna with Child.
The Reception Room also opens onto the large
Gallery of the Ancestors, covered by a long barrel vault; the two
extreme walls are decorated with two fragments of frescoes depicting
games of putti, made in 1681 by Felice Boselli for the destroyed
Sanvitale theatre.
The room is enriched by a large late
sixteenth-century fireplace and furnishings, consisting of some
seventeenth-century tables, coeval chests of drawers and chairs, a
sixteenth-century chest carved with the coats of arms of the Cantelli
Zandemaria and two nineteenth-century neo-Renaissance benches.
On
the walls hang 74 portraits of members of the Sanvitale family; 49 of
the paintings were done around the middle of the 17th century by an
unknown painter, who depicted, sometimes ideally, all the early counts
from Hugh to Hugh III; between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries
the collection was completed by other artists, including Enrico Bandini,
who represented Luigi, Gaetano Signorini, who portrayed Jacopo, Giovanni
Gaibazzi, who portrayed Alberto, and Latino Barilli, who portrayed the
last count Giovanni .
The portico on the north-east side leads to the hall used as a ticket
office, characterized by a stone fireplace dating back to the end of the
16th century.
On the walls hang the portraits of some members of
the Sanvitale family, made between the end of the 17th and the second
half of the 18th century; there are two ovals on display depicting Count
Louis III and his wife Corona Avogadro, painted by Giovan Maria delle
Piane known as "il Molinaretto" around 1700, and the representation of
Count Jacopo Antonio III in the guise of the shepherd Eaco Panellenio,
performed by Giuseppe Baldrighi between 1752 and 1756.
The adjacent room, covered by a painted wooden coffered
ceiling dating back to the 16th century, is furnished with some 18th
century furniture.
On the walls hang the portraits of the last
members of the Farnese family, including Duke Odoardo II and his wife
Dorothea Sofia of Neuburg, portrayed by Felice Boselli, Duke Antonio,
portrayed by Ilario Spolverini in the first half of the 18th century,
Duke Francesco, attributed to Spolverini, and the duchess Elisabetta,
copy of a painting by Giovan Maria delle Piane known as "il
Molinaretto"; to these are added the portraits of Count Alexander III
Sanvitale, made by Felice Boselli, and of Luisa Elisabetta of
Bourbon-France, a copy of a work by Jean-Étienne Liotard.
The Farnese Hall leads to the Hall of religious
paintings, covered by a series of fifteenth-century cross vaults.
Various paintings of religious subjects hang on the walls, including
a Madonna and Child with Saints Michael, Catherine of Alexandria, a holy
pope and Catherine of Siena, created at the end of the 16th century by
the Flemish artist Jan Soens, a Madonna with Child and Saints Giovanni e
Lorenzo, a copy of a work by Michelangelo Anselmi, a Last Supper, a copy
of a painting by Bartolomeo Schedoni, a Madonna with Child, painted in
the 17th century by an unknown Tuscan artist, and some canvases
depicting biblical scenes, made in the second half of the 18th century
for the church of San Benedetto a Priorato.
The
next room contains a valuable removable puppet theatre, built in
neoclassical style for Albertina di Montenuovo between 1820 and 1825;
the building was donated by the countess to the asylum of Fontanellato,
where it was purchased by the municipal administration in 1959.
The wooden work, consisting of a box 107 cm high and 91 deep, has a
scenic arch painted with the trompe-l'œil technique, with a triangular
pediment at the top. Inside, the canvas curtain, which can be rolled up
at the top, is decorated with the depiction of a lake with an islet and
a classical temple; there are 24 puppets, 18 cm high, still in their
original clothes, and 6 sets painted in tempera on cardboard.
The next room, originally used as a
castle tavern, is covered by a ceiling with wooden beams, while the
walls are decorated with frescoes painted by a pupil of Cesare Cesariano
around 1512; the paintings depict a colonnade with Ionic capitals,
connected to each other by wires on which couples of female figures are
stretched out and from which helmets, swords and other weapons are hung;
above the high monochrome frieze, decorated with a series of cupids and
satyrs.
In the room there are also four large carved corbels and
a seventeenth-century table in polychrome scagliola, in the center of
which Hercules is depicted killing the hydra.
As an appendix to the Sala delle Donne equilibrististe stands the
Sala degli Amorini, covered by a lunetted pavilion vault, decorated with
sixteenth-century grotesque frescoes, similar to those of the previous
room; considered for a long time the original chapel of the fortress,
the room was probably born as the alchemical cabinet of Count Gian
Galeazzo Sanvitale.
The paintings continue on the walls, where a
colonnade is depicted supporting an architrave that develops along the
perimeter of the room; other threads with pairs of reclining figures
connect the capitals, while above the lunettes each house two cupids.
The frieze bears the Latin Easter antiphon Regina Caeli.
From the Sala delle Donne tightrope walkers one enters the Sala delle
Grottesche, located in the square tower located at the northern corner
of the castle; the room is covered by a pavilion vault with lunettes,
decorated with grotesque frescoes made in 1861 by the painters Giovanni
Gaibazzi and Giuseppe Bossi.
One wall houses a large painting
depicting the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues,
painted in the early eighteenth century by the painter Carlo Preda.
The Sala delle Donne equilibristi gives access to a small passageway, decorated with sixteenth-century frescoes similar to those in the adjacent room.
The passage room leads to the best known room of the fortress, the
Saletta di Diana e Atteone, originally accessible, going down a few
steps, from the Room of the grotesques.
The room, covered by a
lunette vault, was commissioned by Count Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale and his
wife Paola Gonzaga, but its original destination is unknown: among the
hypotheses discussed by scholars, it could have been born as a bathroom,
private studio or of meditation.
The small room is decorated on
the ceiling and on the 14 lunettes with the cycle of frescoes relating
to the myth of Diana and Actaeon, taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses; at
the top, a dense pergola is depicted between cherubs, which leaves space
in the middle for the celestial vault, in the center of which stands a
circular mirror with the epigraph "Respice finem". The Mannerist
painting, executed between 1523 and 1524 by Parmigianino, is considered
one of the artist's early masterpieces
The north-west portico leads to the hanging garden created in the
19th century on the terrace on the south-west side by demolishing some
blocks of buildings containing accessory rooms; the esplanade, used as a
space for the Sanvitale counts to stroll, was originally cultivated with
flowers and aromatic herbs.
Entirely renovated in 2003, the
narrow and long green space is crossed by a central gravel driveway,
flanked by flowerbeds filled with hydrangeas, lavender plants and other
essences that bloom constantly in spring and summer.
Next to the
south tower stands a monumental example of a hackberry, which partially
collapsed on 24 June 2019.
On the western edge of the garden stand some single-storey buildings,
originally used as service rooms; entirely restructured in the early
years of the 20th century, today they contain the municipal historical
archive.
The Hall of Maps displays some of the 288 maps from the
18th and 19th centuries relating to the Sanvitale properties, given as a
gift to the mayor Pompeo Piazza in 1948 by the last count Giovanni.
The environment also preserves 30 lithographs depicting the castles
of the duchy of Parma and Piacenza, executed around 1850 by the painter
Alberto Pasini.
The south tower, originally taller and built on several floors to
contain the castle's prisons, houses the only nineteenth-century optical
chamber still functioning in Italy, accessible directly from the Garden
of Flora.
The circular, very dark environment houses two systems
of mirrors and a prism placed in correspondence with the ancient
loopholes, which allow the 180° image of the square in front of the
fortress to be clearly reflected and projected onto three screens inside
the room; the equipment, commissioned by Count Giovanni Sanvitale at the
end of the 19th century, was born as a futuristic parlor game of the
time.
In 1964, the optical chamber was chosen as the set for some
sequences of the film Before the Revolution by Bernardo Bertolucci.
The ground floor of the original keep of the castle contains the
chapel dedicated to San Carlo Borromeo, built in 1688 at the behest of
Count Alessandro III Sanvitale.
The room preserves a fresco
depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints Joseph, Clare, Francis and
John the Baptist, executed between 1609 and 1610 by Bartolomeo Schedoni
in the Capuchin church of Fontevivo and removed following the Napoleonic
suppression of religious orders in 1805 .
The marble altar, built
in 1688 by the sculptor Alberto Oliva, is enriched by the altarpiece
representing San Carlo Borromeo anointing the plague victims, painted at
the end of the 17th century by the painter Antonio Nasini.
The
chapel also houses an eighteenth-century oil depicting St. Ignatius
freeing a possessed woman and the three funerary busts of Duchess Maria
Luigia, executed by Giuseppe Carpi after 1847, of Maria Sanvitale,
sculpted by Tommaso Bandini in 1843, and of Count Stefano Sanvitale,
dating from around 1838.
The large hall used as the seat of the municipal council between 1945
and 1980 has housed since 2015 the banner of the Blessed Virgin of
Fontanellato, a large red damask drape painted in tempera on both sides
and decorated with a fringe on the edges.
The object, perhaps
used as the flag of a galley captained by Count Stefano Sanvitale during
the seventeenth-century war of Candia, was built between 1654 and 1656;
later the standard was exhibited for many years in the Arms Hall, but
was subsequently removed and kept in a deposit, before being exhibited
again in the chapel of San Carlo. Starting in 2006, the drape underwent
a long restoration work, completed in 2015 with the display in the new
environment inside a glass case.
One side of the flag is painted
with the depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin of Fontanellato, in
which also Saint Charles Borromeo appears at her feet; on the opposite
face God the Father is represented with a dove between angels and Saint
John the Baptist with a lamb, next to the inscription "Ecce agnus Dei".
On the edge of both fronts are the coats of arms of the Knights of
Malta, of the Grand Master Giovanni Paolo Lascaris of Ventimiglia and
Castellar and of the Sanvitales, as well as a decoration of small golden
flowers.
On the second floor
of the fortress is the large hall of the loggia; the room, covered by a
wooden trussed ceiling, is now used as the seat of the municipal council
of Fontanellato.
Hall of merlons and Hall of jealousies
Two
other rooms on the top level, also enclosed by wooden trussed ceilings,
are used as conference rooms; while the Sala delle jealousie overlooks
the internal courtyard, the Sala dei merli opens towards the square in
front of the fortress through the numerous covered Ghibelline merlons.
Below the castle there are long underground tunnels, born as stables and quarterings for the troops, as well as landing on the moat; it was originally accessed via two staircases, one of which was intended for horses. In the 16th century, when the defensive needs of the fortress no longer existed, the rooms were used as cellars and service rooms, with a well and an oven.
The castle is open to the public
and is part of the circuit of castles of the Association of Castles of
the Duchy of Parma, Piacenza and Pontremoli, also representing its
headquarters.
In addition to the internal courtyard and the
Garden of Flora, the loggia on the noble floor, the Hall of Arms, the
Dining Room, the Billiard Room, the Room of Maria Luigia's relics, the
Room of Oriental costumes, the Room from reception, the Bridal Chamber,
the Gallery of the ancestors, the Sanvitale Room, the Farnese Room, the
Room of religious paintings, the Small Theater Room, the Room of Women
tightrope walkers, the Cupids Room, the Grotesque Room, the Hall of
passage, the Hall of Diana and Actaeon, the optical chamber and the Hall
of the standard.
The internal courtyard, the square in front of it and the area around the moat are home to various cultural, gastronomic and singing events, as well as hosting exhibitions and markets, including the monthly one dedicated to antiques.
Like many castles, the fortress of Fontanellato also seems to host
some ghosts, as confirmed during some inspections carried out in 2014.
According to some legends, the spirit of Barbara Sanseverino roams
the halls of the main floor, executed following the alleged conspiracy
against Duke Ranuccio I Farnese. The chapel of San Carlo would instead
be the eternal home of the ghost of Maria Sanvitale, the daughter of
Luigi Sanvitale and Albertina di Montenuovo who died at the age of 5.