The profitable barracks of Castel San Pietro or, more simply, Castel San Pietro, originally called Aerarialcasernen Castel San Pietro, is a military facility located on the hill of San Pietro in Verona, on a hill and characterized by a wide panoramic view of the Scaligerian town, and for this reason it is a privileged place for tourists and residents of Veronese, who can also reach the square in front of the castle with the Castel San Pietro funicular. The building was designed by K.K. The Austrian Genie-Direktion Verona, stationed in the city and built between 1852 and 1858, when the remains of the curtain wall of the pre-existing castle built at the end of the fourteenth century were also restored.
The area in which the castle was to be built was a strategic location
for control of the Adige River and the entire area; confirming the
importance of the site, ancient traces of a pre-Roman settlement dating
back to the Iron Age have been discovered, suggesting the existence of a
fortified village. In Roman times, at the beginning of the 1st century
BC, the Arx was also built here, a sacred and fortified place to guard
the passage of the Adige through the Via Postumia, an oppidum at the
foot of the hill, and a city built later. on the opposite bank of the
river.
A Roman temple was then built on the same site, the ruins
of which could still be seen at the beginning of the 19th century, so
much so that da Persico wrote in 1820: "[...] the very ancient church of
San Pietro, built of ancient and precious marble , [...] fragments of
the majestic buildings of Campidoglio", of which "walls, columns and
various capitals still stand, with some remnants of ancient frescoes".
The aforementioned church of San Pietro is mentioned already in the
eighth century, when it already existed and was subjected to restoration
work, and, obviously, was built on the ruins of an ancient pagan temple.
The defensive function of the hill was fixed in the Middle Ages; in
fact the location of the castrum of 890 goes back to the Berengario. In
1393, Gian Galeazzo Visconti built a more imposing castle, whose work
led to the loss of most of the ancient pre-existing buildings. During
the reign of the Serenissima, the castle was intended for the residence
of the military commander, for which new buildings were built in its
fence. In 1627, further restoration work was recorded in the soldiers'
barracks, in the houses of the "governor of Castelli" and the chief of
the bombardiers, and in 1703 the existing infantry barracks were
expanded to house a double garrison, which increased from 150 to 300
men.
In 1801, Napoleonic soldiers blew up and destroyed much of
the castle and interior buildings, including the church, although
remnants of the curtain wall are still significant. Finally, between
1852 and 1858, the Austrian barracks that have survived to this day were
designed and built, as well as the remains of the castle and the access
road to the complex. It was commissioned by Field Marshal Josef Radetzky
and designed by engineers k.k. Genie-Direction Verona under the
direction of Konrad Petrash.
Since 2002, after several years of
dereliction of the barracks, an operational plan was defined to improve
the entire complex and restore artifacts to be used as the residence of
the City Museum.
The fence of the ancient medieval castle has an irregular, elongated
layout, due to the morphology of the location of the plant on the top of
the hill: the western and southern sides are straight, and the eastern
side has a broken line. Originally, the enclosure, recognizable by its
masonry with alternating rows of pebbles and bricks, was equipped with
twelve high towers, no longer in existence or torn apart. Inside the
defensive wall, towards the northeast end, stood a tall fortress, now
ruined. Two access doors equipped with a drawbridge were placed
respectively on the east side and on the south facade; in addition, a
secondary road led along a high wall, connecting the castle from the
north-western corner with the underlying tower, belonging to the walls
of the Scaligerian slope.
Before the construction of the Habsburg
barracks, the southern part of the castle was occupied by various
buildings for the quartering of soldiers and the church of San Pietro in
Castello, destroyed in 1801 by Napoleonic troops; the castle was
equipped with a large underground cistern built in the sixteenth
century, which has survived to this day.
The barracks of the
Austrian infantry rise inside the original fortified enclosure of the
Visconti castle and partially cover the site of the ancient church of
San Pietro. The building has a three-part linear body: the central part,
with a greater glider length, rises to four floors, adapting to the
difference in ground level; the two heads of the tower, protruding from
the main façade, rise one more floor. The internal distribution system
is governed by modular elements of large rooms covered with low arched
vaults, as well as a stairwell in a central position. The corridor at
the back is covered by a round vault on the upper floor, and on each
level leads to large vaulted rooms of the common bedrooms.
In the
two head towers, where the corridor ends, the axis of the vaults is
rotated 90 degrees, with rooms connected through and through. The
toilets on each floor are separated in a free-standing tower in the
middle of the rear façade. In addition to hostels, command posts,
officer quarters, laboratories for the repair of equipment and weapons,
and, finally, warehouses were arranged inside the barracks. Thus, the
barracks could accommodate two infantry companies and 32 artillerymen,
for a total of 452 soldiers and 9 officers. The presence of artillerymen
was due to the presence of a square located in front of the barracks,
which could be used by artillery to strike the city from above in case
of war.
The Rundbogenstil (round arch style), then adopted in the
great Arsenal of Vienna, was first applied in Verona in the neo-medieval
design of the Castel San Pietro barracks. In its facades with open brick
facing and polychrome arched lintels, we can recognize the features of
the Central European Middle Ages and elements of the Veronese pictorial
tradition. Conscious of its special position in the urban landscape, at
the behest of Radetzky, the Habsburg planners gave the new barracks the
architectural appearance of a castle, in keeping with the surrounding
walls of the Scaliger Hill. The terraced roof with stylized white
loopholes was intended not only for military purposes, but also for
perspective observation of the city in its natural and landscape
context.