Quart Castle
| Quart Castle | ||
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.jpg) Quart Castle, view from the west |
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| Creation time : | 12th Century | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Received or received substantial parts | |
| Place: | quart | |
| Geographical location | 45 ° 45 '5.4 " N , 7 ° 23' 48.8" E | |
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The castle Quart ( French Château de Quart , Italian Castello di Quart ) is a castle a little above the municipality of the same name Quart in the largely French-speaking autonomous region of Aosta Valley in Italy . It was founded in the 11th century and later expanded by the House of Savoy . From the beginning of the 16th century, the complex passed through many different hands before it acquired the Aosta Valley region in 1951. The castle has been restored since 2010 .
history
As grave finds near the castle area show, the area was already settled in the Neolithic Age, but today's castle complex goes back to the foundation of the Lords de Porta Sancti Ursi (later known as di Quart) in the 11th century. Old narrative sources date the castle's origins as late as the 12th century, to the time around 1185. The builder is said to have been Jacques I. di Quart. The exposed location above the Dora Baltea river , a left tributary of the Po , made it possible to control the important trade route that runs along the valley. The complex was subsequently the center of a great and rich rule. The last male representative of the di Quart family was Enrico di Quart. When he died in 1378, he left no male heir, and so the property came to the House of Savoy, which appointed a castellan there .
In 1500, Duke Charles II gave the castle to Filiberto Laschis, who sold it to Carlo Francesco Balbis the following year. His family sold the complex to Count Nicola Coardo in 1612, before it came to Nicola Perrone di San Martino two years later. His descendants donated them to the community of Quart in 1800. From that year the castle buildings were used for agricultural purposes, which led to damage to the structure. Burg Quart was sold to private customers in 1874 and only returned to public hands in 1951 when the Aosta Valley region acquired the complex.
Since September 2010, the region has had extensive restoration work carried out on the facility. The castle is therefore - with a few exceptions - not open to the public. When the work is finished, an ethnographic museum will be set up there.
description
Quart Castle stands above the place of the same name on a rock, the shape of which defines the layout of the complex. It can be reached from the village via a gradually rising road towards the west. It ends at an esplanade to the west of the castle , on which there used to be a water basin that was fed by a branching off from a nearby stream. However, the road is not the original route to the facility. This can no longer be used today due to a collapsed bridge.
The castle complex consists of buildings from different epochs, which are surrounded by a common curtain wall. The oldest structure comes from the time the castle was founded and is located in a square residential tower that replaced a predecessor from the 11th century after 1261. It stands on the highest position in the castle area and was also used for representative purposes in the 13th century. Remnants of fresco paintings that were made by Piedmontese artists at the time of Enrico di Quart testify to this . Around 1500 they were covered with white paint after the castle complex had lost its importance.
The majority of the buildings date from the 14th to 16th centuries, when the castle belonged to the House of Savoy, whose coat of arms is still visible in the castle. The gate tower on the southwest flank of the complex with the main entrance to the castle also dates from this time . Maschikulis and loopholes testify to his defensiveness.
In addition to the remains of the painting in the residential tower, a cycle of frescoes has also been preserved in the large hall of the south wing. It was created by 1557 at the latest.
The castle chapel in the southeast, dedicated to St. Nicholas , was built in the early 17th century. In 1606 it replaced a previous medieval building that the Balbis family had abandoned. The year of construction is immortalized in the triangular gable above the entrance. The small church has an interior richly decorated with stucco , because Giovanni Gabuti added it.
Because of the frequent changes of ownership, there is no original furniture in the castle.
literature
- Lorenzo Appolonia et al .: Il castello di Quart. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 2, 2005, pp. 71–122 ( PDF ; 16.5 MB).
- Nathalie Dufour, Pietro Fioravanti, Laura Pizzi: Il restauro della cappella del castello di Quart. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 5, 2008, pp. 202-218 ( PDF ; 11.1 MB).
- Nathalie Dufour, Pietro Fioravanti: Progettazione scavo e indagine archeologica conclusiva presso il castello di Quart. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 6, 2009, p. 120 ( PDF ; 495 kB).
- Pietro Fioravanti: Progettazione, interventi di manutenzione straordinaria e indagine archeologica al castello di Quart. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 1, 2003/2004, p. 244 ( PDF ; 235 kB).
- Carlo Merkel: Il castello di Quart nella Valle dʼAosta. Secondo un inventario inedito del 1557. Contributo alla storia del mobilio. Forzani, Rome 1895.
- Mauro Minola, Beppe Ronco: Valle d'Aosta. Castelli e fortificazioni. Macchione, Varese 2002, ISBN 88-8340-116-6 .
- Carlo Nigra: La Valle dʼAosta (= Torri e castelli e case forti del Piemonte dal 1000 al secolo XVI. Volume 2). Cattaneo, Novara 1974.
- André Zanotto: Castelli valdostani. Musumeci, Aosta 1980, ISBN 88-7032-049-9 .
- Gianfranco Zidda: Aggiornamento su alcune novità iconografiche nel donjon del castello di Quart. in seguito agli interventi di restauro condotti nel 2008. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 6, 2009, pp. 219–221 ( PDF ; 1.7 MB).
- Gianfranco Zidda: I cicli di Alexander e dei mesi nel castello di Quart. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 1, 2003/2004, pp. 236-238 ( PDF ; 4825 kB).
- Gianfranco Zidda: Pulitura, restauro e ricomposizione di frammenti di intonaco dipinto dal castello di Quart. In: Bollettino della Soprintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali. No. 0, 2002/2003, p. 72 ( PDF ; 175 kB).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ quartdelune.it , accessed on November 14, 2016.
- ↑ a b c Il castello di Quart (PDF; 425 kB)
- ↑ Castle Quart on lovevda.it , access on 14 November 2016th
- ↑ a b Burg Quart on aoste.ialpes.com (French), accessed on April 6, 2018.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Burg Quart on icastelli.it ( Memento of the original from August 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed November 14, 2016.
- ^ Note on Quart Castle on the Aosta Valley region website (French), accessed on November 14, 2016.
