This summer I decided to explore some cool places in my home country, so I headed to Sirmione: a small town in northern Italy surrounded by Lake Garda. Among the many amenities, you surely can’t miss the Scaliger castle and the Grottoes of Catullus.
Today I’m gonna tell you my experience and guide you through the Scaliger castle.
Kitesurf, ice-cream and… history!Sirmione is located in a peninsula surrounded by the waters of Lake Garda and the only way to get there is a narrow strip of land which starts from Colombare. I suggest you find a parking lot here, if you don’t want to become crazy later. You’ll walk romantically in the park along the shore until you reach Sirmione.
Although many of you would prefer experiencing extreme sports like kitesurf, scuba diving and sailing, Sirmione also offers more chilling adventures. Since you cross the entrance bridge you understand it is a family-friendly town and its main specialty, for the happiness of kids, is ice-cream! Even if many restaurants would say dishes based on Carpione (a type of fish native to Lake Garda) instead.
While you make your way among tons of ice-cream shops, you can enjoy the view and the distinctive narrow streets full of color and scents.
Sirmione is impregnated by history and at its entrance, right on your right, you find the Scaliger fortress, a castle of the 13th century. Besides, if you walk further for 900 meters, you’ll find another archaeological area called Grottoes of Catullus. This park consists of the ruins of a Roman villa of the Augustan age.
Actually, the whole town is studded by historical spots like the church of St. Anna (1300), St. Maria della Neve or St. Maria Maggiore (built around 1400), St. Peter in Mavino (800) and the Roman villa of Desenzano.
THE SCALIGER CASTLE OF SIRMIONE
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE THROUGH
After some time spent in line waiting to buy an entry ticket on one of the castle’s drawbridges, you should be able to visit this well conserved age-old masterpiece. At the box-office you have many price options, but what I suggest you to do is buy a coupon which allows you also to enter the Grottoes of Catullus. In this way, you’ll skip the line later.
You should remember that if you want to visit the fortress’s dockyard, you need to pay an extra fee. Is it worth it? Well, while I hadn’t been impressed, you only live once, right? So, not to regret it later, it’s better to pay an additional handful of euros.
Take your time, no info points or secret rooms are includedNow that you’re inside, you can relax. The tour isn’t long, so take your time and try to read this guide or the brochure they give you at the entrance. I say it, because I didn’t find any info points along the tour and if you want to understand something of what you’re seeing you need a pinch of help.
Also the path is not marked and you might have some difficulties to orientate, but don’t worry, the fortress is small and you’ll get used to it quick.
Unfortunately, you’re able to visit only the external areas, so don’t expect secret doors or special rooms as a part of the battlements’ inner areas.
The stronghold overviewThe stronghold shows common constructive characters in common with the other Scaligeran fortresses in the territory of Verona. Besides the architectural technique, the original finishing touch of the walls, decorated with plaster which looks like regular stone blocks, is typical in the Scaligeran age.
The fortress appears as a formidable bastion, encircled by the water of Lake Garda, in a strategic position at the entrance of Sirmione, in the narrowest point of the peninsula. On the right side, just past the entrance, you could get into the fortress through the first ravelin: a triangular detached outwork of fortifications (with two faces forming a salient angle) constructed beyond the main ditch and in front of the curtain walls and bastions.
Tourists can access the Scaliger castle by another gate, past a bigger bridge on the left side which can also be crossed by cars. You entered from this spot.
The main courtyard and donjon After the box-office on the right there is the most important courtyard. On its left, there is the donjon: the sightseeing tower. This rectangular courtyard is surrounded by four walls and three angular shielded towers.
You can walk up through a tower’s stairway and reach the lifted walkways which surround the yard. From here you can have a nice outlook of the fortress. You should continue to walk along the walls and enter the donjon: now, take a big breath and don’t look up. There are 146 steps heading to the highest rampart of the stronghold. After a wooden staircase, you finally reach the lookout tower’s peak and you can admire the breathtaking views of Sirmione and Lake Garda. Back down by the same path, in the courtyard, you can catch sight of the main gate. You can see the squared arch of the second ravelin and the second drawbridge connected by a barbican (fortified corridor) to the first drawbridge and ravelin (where there is the main entrance of the stronghold).
In this corridor, if your back is to the main courtyard, there is a passage to the dockyard (trans. from Italian “darsena”) on the left and the entrance of the second courtyard on the right. A little stairway on the left leads you to a small guardhouse and it is interesting to notice the presence of the only decorative elements of the whole stronghold: spites or pinecones of stone on the glacises. The battlement is made in the shape called “a capannina” (hat-shaped), like the ones in the dockyard.
Proceeding through the passage on the left, you can notice the rhomboidal structure of the dockyard with “lance-pointed” towers. You can visit the dockyard every 30 minutes (more or less).
CONSTRUCTIVE STAGES
1st stageMastino I Della Scala started the work in 1277. He built the donjon (the sightseeing tower), the main courtyard, the three angular towers and two gates with drawbridges and ravelins. Other Scaligerans constructive characters are the Ghibelline “a coda di rondine” (swallow-tail) merlons, the vertical thrust and the decoration of the walls.
2nd stageIn the 14th century, the second courtyard and another ravelin was added to the main courtyard and linked together by a barbican. The constructive technique was the same of the earlier period.
3rd – 4th stageThe dockyard was probably built in the early 1400s and finished under the domination of Venice, the Serenissima: the walls had lance-pointed angular towers, like 15th century
ramparts, and they aren’t linked by any toothing-stones: projecting stones at the end of a wall so that, when required, another building or wall could be bonded into it to make a continuous surface.
Venetians subdued Sirmione in 1405 and immediately modernized the old wooden dockyard for the new navy. Venetians built two little towers at the edges and new shape called “a capannina”. The towers also had pedestrian crossings for sentinels.
HISTORICAL SITUATION
(1200 - 1400)
How the construction works beganDuring the 13th century, Mastino I Della Scala (1259 - 1277) was ruling Verona and to reach enduring power he had to enlarge content between Ghibellins and Guelphs. So, he attacked the Cathars, some heretics who had an important settlement in Sirmione. He moved to the lake under the order of the Venetian Inquisition and defeated the Cathars.
In 1276, two thousand people were captured and condemned to fight in the Verona’s arena. In this way, Verona gained a strategic base to control the southern part of Lake Garda and Mastino started to build the fortress.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Verona was one of the strongest powers in northern Italy under the rule of Alboino della Scala (Scaliger lord of Verona from 1304 to his death in 1311) and his brother, Cangrande (who lived from 1291 to 1329 and shared the lead of Verona from 1308 to 1311). It was also a landmark of the Italian Ghibelline faction (Cangrande became Imperial Ambassador).
Verona conquered Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Brescia, Parma and Lucca. Between 1337 and 1339, the Dominion lost the city of Brescia and Lombard countryside, being attacked by the Viscounts from Milan: one of the most ancient noble families in northern Italy established in the Duchy of Milan since the end of the 10th century. In 1402, Gian Galeazzo Visconti subdued Verona.
Although after the Battle of Maclodio (1427) Venice was dominating the territory as far as the countryside of Bergamo, there were some military resistances to Venetians in the southern part of the Lake Garda, supported by the Visconti and Gonzaga’s of Mantua until half of the century.
MODERN TO CONTEMPORARY AGES
(1500 - 1900)
After the construction of the more strategically important citadel of Peschiera in the 16th century, the Scaliger castle of Sirmione progressively lost military importance for Venetians who made it become just a depot for weapons and munitions.
We know they modified the structure of the castle as written in some Napoleonic and Austrian registers of landed property. Some places were turned into covered rooms (i.e. the second courtyard) to shelter, at the beginning of the 17th century, a captain with 20 soldiers and relative equipment. Venetians also built a large hall upon the dormitory.
In 1912, the municipal offices, the family doctor-house, the post-office, Carabinieri barracks and a little jail took place in the fortress and after three years it became the town hall.
During the First World War, the post-office continued to work and an anti-aircraft siren was installed at the top of the donjon. After the battle of Caporetto (1917), some retreating French soldiers took cover in the stronghold.
In 1917, after the Austrian occupation, the stronghold became property of the new Italian Government which acquired the fortress and declared it a National Monument.
In 1919, the Royal Superintendence for the Monuments of Lombardy started the repairing works.
In 1941, a red flag for air drills was installed at the top of the donjon and a motorboat of the military airport of Desenzano was parked in the dockyard.
The second courtyard became a timber yard for the population of Sirmione by order of the Podestà (a monocratic public office which superintended Italian municipalities during Fascism). On 9th September 1943, the German chief of southern Lake Garda division took possession of the stronghold.
Only after the birth of Ministero dei Beni Culturali in 1976, the Scaliger castle passed under the administration of the Superintendence of Brescia until 2015. Today, the fortress is run by the Polo Museale della Lombardia.
WHAT DO YOU THINK
I believe they can valorize the Scaliger castle using the internal rooms to hosts exhibitions and more. In this way, people would be able to visit the hidden areas of the stronghold and Polo Museale della Lombardia would be able to raise additional funds to its cause. What would you suggest to Polo Museale della Lombardia to improve the site?
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