CASTEL
DEL MONTE
Splendid medieval village
built on a hill of the Gran Sasso National Park, Castel
del Monte enjoys a panoramic position very evocative
and offers to its visitor views and foreshortenings rare beauty.
Rightly inserted among the most beautiful villages
of Italy in 2004, Castel del Monte deserves to be
a stage of every trip in Abruzzo.
Even if the town planning is highly medieval, it has been
recovered proof of human settlements since the XI sec. a.C
and also of Roman age that however were localized downhill
(City of the Three Crowns). This suggest that the movement
towards the mount and the fortification had been the consequence
of the repeated invasions of people from the North (Goti,
Longobardi, Franchi).
The first proof of the existence of Castel del Monte appears
in one papal bull of 1223. By that time the
village belonged to the Acquaviva until 1474
and then passed to the Sforza.
In 1501 Castel del the Monte was destroyed
by the Aquila's army of
spanish faith leaded by Muzio Colonna as the city sided with
the French part. The village was then owned by Piccolomini,
by Medici and in 1743 it passed to the Borboni.
From 1861 it makes part of the Italian territory.
Castel del Monte was fundamental stage of the shepherds who
practiced the transumanza for centuries and to remember
it an entire museum is dedicated to the sheep rearing.
The visit can begin from the medieval town-walls that still
exists today, therefore crossing one of its doors you enter
into the village that guards jewels of rare beauty: the Palazzo
del Governatore (XV-XVI sec.), the baroque church
of the Madonna del Suffragio (XV sec.), “sporti”
(the underpasses), the church of S.Marco Evangelista,
ending with the Ricetto, the first nucleus
of the risen original village rose where the courtyard of
the fortified castle was.
Castel del Monte also offers pleasures of the table: the “chiaranese”
(meat of sheep slowly cooked in big containers); “marcetto”
(the spicy cream of pecorino cheese ) and an excellent pecorino.
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