GROPPARELLO CASTLE
UNIQUE, MAGICAL, PERCHED
Suspended on a wild territory like an eagle's nest, the Castle of Gropparello (VIII-XIII century), strikes visitors for the turreted grouping of the monumental complex, which during the visit gives the eye an alternation of scenographically different panoramic views between their.
With an irregular plan due to the roughness of the ground, the Castle represents an example of the art of medieval fortification, placed to defend the access road to the valley, it stands on a large ophiolithic area with a ravine that descends to the Vezzeno stream. and that makes the manor unassailable.
It is surrounded by a 20-hectare park, within which there are the magnificent Vezzeno Gorges with the famous Celtic altar, and the Museum of the Rising Rose, which winds through a labyrinth of hornbeams with 17 rose gardens consisting of 1280 plants. of 120 varieties of roses.
HISTORY
STRUCTURE
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTION
CONTACTS
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
Gropparello Castle , which in ancient documents appears as Rocca di Cagnano, is an extraordinary example of medieval fortification built to defend the access road to a valley, perched like an eagle's nest on a steep cliff, therefore unassailable. Even today, looking at its majestic walls from the bottom of the walkways, one wonders with wonder which men could have built such an ingenious work, which is unique in this territory.
Most likely the Church of Piacenza, which was in possession of it in the centuries around the year 1000, hired, as often happened foreign workers, more practices of construction on rock (perhaps Norman).
The oldest document known so far on Gropparello dates back to 808, the year in which, according to the bishop of Piacenza, Giuliano II, he went on the back of a mule to Aachen to ask the emperor Charlemagne, with whom he was friendly, the concession of a fiefdom that went from Sariano to the court of Gusano, thus including the castle of Cagnano, which is one of the oldest in the area, and perhaps in Italy. Recent studies are showing that the first stone core was already well extended around 1200. Its pontoon holes, perfectly preserved especially on the sides suspended over the void of the overhang, can still indicate today what was the height of the masons who built these walls.
It is believed that the fortification of the Carolingian period was built on a pre-existing Roman construction, perhaps a simple watchtower or a "castrum" of the second century BC. Some interesting finds found in the twentieth century during renovations support this hypothesis.