The CASTLE of FENIS (Italy) - Medieval charm

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My dear friends, today I am taking you with me to a very ancient and fascinating place. In one of the best preserved medieval castles in Italy.
We are located in Valle d'Aosta and precisely in the locality of Fenis, where the homonymous castle is located, one of the most spectacular examples of civil and military architecture of the Middle Ages.
Unlike most of the numerous castles present in this region of northwestern Italy, the Castello di Fenis is not located on a hill or on a rocky promontory for purely defensive purposes, but on a small green knoll totally devoid of natural defenses.
This is because the Castle, owned, like many other manors in the Region, of the noble Challant family, was initially used as an administrative and prestigious seat for the most representative members of the family.
For this, it was adorned and embellished with splendid decorative elements and frescoes still perfectly preserved, which symbolized the prestige of this powerful and rich family, which over time, however, also endowed it with an imposing defensive apparatus.
Of the Castello di Fenis, or of a structure located in the same place, there is even news from 1200, even if the construction dates back to the period between 1320 and 1420. It remained the property of the Challant family until 1716 when it was sold to Baldassarre Castellar di Saluzzo, whose family, over time, dragged the manor to a progressive decay, even becoming a simple rural home.
The recovery and consequent restoration of this prestigious castle started with the purchase by Alfredo d'Andrade who then sold it to the Italian State in 1895.
The Fenis Castle has a pentagonal plan formed by a massive and imposing enclosure of crenellated walls and circular turrets except the one more exposed to the south, with a square plan.
You enter inside by passing through a huge gate that was barred in case of danger.
The central body is surrounded by a splendid wooden loggia totally frescoed, unique of its kind.
Inside the courtyard dominates a large stone staircase on the top of which there is a wonderful fresco depicting St. George in the act of killing the dragon, at the time a very widespread symbolism that embodied the chivalric ideal of the time.
The balconies of the loggia are decorated with essays holding parchments with old French writings.
On the ground floor there is a huge room with the largest fireplace in Europe and continue towards the kitchen, the refectory for soldiers and servants, the pantry and the armory.
On the first floor, the rooms of the Lords, the noble kitchen and the reception room, that of justice and a frescoed Chapel also equipped with a large fireplace.
On the second floor, now inaccessible, which was reached via a spiral staircase, you reach the servants 'and soldiers' rooms and the patrol walkway.
All the furnishings that are still found inside the Fenis Castle are original of the time. A rarity.
Visiting this Castle, one feels truly projected into the medieval era of the Knights and noble families.
A magical place of rare beauty that I really recommend to visit if you are in this part of Italy.

As always, I want to thank you for the friendship and affection you always show me through your comments.You motivate and encourage me a lot. Thank you very much with all my heart!I also want to thank the many of you who have already visited the @Bonnie Nadine Newman's channel.As you know, this splendid artist, singer, lyricist instrumentalist and performer, gave me the enormous joy of collaborating with her, through the drafting of Italian texts taken from my poems together with the wonderful music of Maestro Kjell Karlsson.
I also leave you the link of the playlist Bonnie wanted to dedicate to me
only1emmapeel
Renata Limarzi, Lyricist/Poet/Writer ...