Castello Jocteau
| Castello Jocteau | ||
|---|---|---|
 Castello Jocteau |
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| Alternative name (s): | Château Jocteau, Castello Duca degli Abruzzi, Castello Generale Cantore | |
| Creation time : | 1907 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | well preserved | |
| Construction: | plastered | |
| Place: | Aosta | |
| Geographical location | 45 ° 44 '31.7 " N , 7 ° 20' 9.2" E | |
| Height: | 637 m slm | |
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The Castello Jocteau , also Castello Duca degli Abruzzi or Castello Generale Cantore , is one of the three castles in the Aosta Valley that were built in the 20th century: the other two are the Castel Savoia in Gressoney and the Castello di Baron Gamba in Châtillon . The castle belongs to the military property management and is not open to the public. This is where the command of the Aosta Alpine Military School and a small mountaineering museum are located.
terrain
The castle is located 654 m above sea level on the Collina di Beauregard in the northeast of Aosta and offers a panoramic view of the peaks of Monte Emilius and Beca di Nona . The castle is located on an elevated location opposite the city of Aosta and is about 100 meters away from the old glacier bed, which has been the glacier threshold between the valleys of the Great St. Bernard and the Buthier stream for thousands of years . The hills around the castle do not reach a height of 900 meters and are covered with vineyards . On the northern edge of the military area, in a meadow on a rounded relief, traces of a barrow from the Iron Age have been preserved, which probably belonged to a leader of the Salasser .
The castle is located on Via Scuola Militare Alpina 17 , the continuation of Via Duca degli Abruzzi , and can be reached from the road that leads from Aosta to the Beauregard Hospital via the Buthier Bridge, near the Arch of Augustus . If you continue on the same road along the hill, you will reach the park entrance in a few minutes.
description
The castle has not undergone any major architectural alterations in a century of its existence. The brightly colored building can also be seen from the Envers ( orographic right side of the Aosta Valley ), built at the beginning of the 20th century by the civil engineer Ottavio Invrea from Turin , the coordinator of the work carried out by the Bianchi in Aosta according to plans by the architect Carlo Ceppi were executed. The line of the towers can also be seen in Castel Savoia, which was built only two years earlier and probably inspired the architect: The architectural style of the entire building is eclectic and elegant and has a massive structure, which is created by the alternation of round towers and those with square towers Floor plan is created.
In the north-west wing of the building there is a chapel in neo-Gothic style with a rectangular floor plan and cross vaults . On the facade you see one with frescoes decorated lobby and its bell tower has two bells and double windows. The entrance is mediated by an iron door with a half-relief, a gift from '' Rivetti '' depicting a priest and two soldiers. The chapel opens to the right to a small chapel and the sacristy. The castle also has its own aqueduct .
inside rooms
In the castle there are several halls, salons and underground rooms, which are decorated with the Jocteau baron's coat of arms and various floral stucco work in the Art Nouveau style , which was modern at the time of construction. Worth mentioning is the honorary salon with an oval floor plan, called “La Rotonda”, which is lined up opposite the “Blue Room”, the commandant's office, the assembly hall and the library. The salon has a narrow loggia in which the school's prices are displayed in memory of the “Nucleo pattuglie veloci sci-alpine” (German: core of the fast alpine ski patrols). In the 1930s, they formed the elite of military ski mountaineering in Italy, under whose names those of Zeno Colò and Achille Compagnoni stand out.
Before the command of the Alpini was housed there, there was the institute for alpine special formations, which changed the use of most of the premises: the salons were adapted to accommodate the service offices and a physiological laboratory, an archive library for maps, a cinema room, the museum for materials for alpine skiers, a department for wooden sculptures and a gym for ski gymnastics have been installed.
Inside the castle, numerous valuable rooms were preserved until 1943, which the Kingdom of Italy purchased together with the castle for 200,000 lire. The looting after the armistice resulted in the castle being robbed of its most valuable materials: the valuable furniture and the old volumes of the library were stolen and only partially recovered in 1945. The library, which next to the furniture shows a painting on canvas with a bucolic theme that was created outdoors, has numerous volumes of military history, alpine life, alpine botany and international geography archived in the cupboards, while photographs on the notice boards are exhibited, which provide information about the 100-year history of the school.
In the commandant-general's office, the baronal decorations are still perfectly preserved, while the assembly room is carefully furnished with wooden sketches of alpine technology, at the same time as the “Rocciodromo” and for the pupils to try out the different types of terrain “on boards”, which are part of the 50 made by the sculptor Mario Stuffer's restored didactic sketches were designed.
The statues on display in the castle are numerous, thanks mainly to the museum collection dedicated to wood carving. At the north entrance we encounter a bronze bust of the Count of Abruzzo , created by the sculptor Orlando Orlandini . On the ground floor, the wooden sculptures by Jean-Antoine Carrel and Amilcar Crétier and those dedicated to the skiing officers and the Alpino on duty can be found in natural grandeur .
Illustrious visitors
From the 1930s onwards, among the illustrious visitors to the school, the Italian flagship: Benito Mussolini in 1938, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1939, King Umberto II and Princess Marie José of Belgium . After the Second World War , four presidents of the Republic of Italy came to visit Castello Jocteau : Giovanni Leone , Giuseppe Saragat , Francesco Cossiga and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi . Pope John Paul II , a regular in the Aosta Valley, also visited the castle.
The chapel
The chapel is consecrated to the Madonna and adorned with an artistically valuable cross donated by Pope John Paul II. Inside you can see a lot of wooden furniture: the benches, the balustrade and the altar are made of wood. Above the altar is a wooden frame painting depicting the Madonna and two angels. In the small chapel there are votive photos of fallen soldiers to whom John Paul II dedicated a prayer during his visit. The choir has a sessile oak floor while the rest of the church has a stone floor.
The park
The castle is surrounded by a large park designed by Giuseppe Roda , an architect from Turin and well-known garden architect. The park, above which there is a flagpole with the Italian tricolor, consists of a wooded area with firs , larches , beeches , horse chestnuts , cedars , birches , linden and maples , and a rocky area.
The park, which was damaged by the residents of the castle between 1943 and 1945, was cleaned and put back in order by the men of Kolonnel Boffa . This park, which is mainly visited because of the long range of tree essences, is a real botanical garden, which is regularly looked after by the regional assessor for agriculture and forestry. There are numerous plants of rare species there.
The climbing garden
There is a climbing garden in the park , which was avant-garde for its time and was previously used for the perfection of alpine techniques. It dates back to the first years of the 20th century: when the school was founded, the general of the armed forces corps and alpinist Giuseppe Inaudi wanted to create a climbing garden for exercises above the castle; For this purpose, with the help of the climbing instructor and sergeant of the school, Emilio Comici , the cartographic insurance companies and the drawings made by Toni Ortelli , the construction of the "Rocciodromo" began: Giuseppe Inaudi modeled the granite ridge with explosive mines and pickaxes. The “Rocciodromo” was designed to present all types of climbing routes , whether they were ridges, chimneys, overhangs, crossways , cracks or reverse grips, as well as for all levels of difficulty . Thanks to some technical specialists, an ice climbing wall was also built .
history
Countess Candida Jocteau Bombrini , wife of Charles-Albert Jocteau , had the castle built in 1907; it remained in the hands of the nobles for almost 30 years. The Jocteaus were an old Savoyard family who came from Grenoble and served the Kingdom of Italy from the Risorgimento .
In the 1930s there was a need to expand knowledge of armaments and alpine equipment techniques and, above all, to prepare the cadres who were to train and lead the troops in the alpine scenery in an appropriate manner for alpine skiing. For this purpose, the Scuola Centrale Militare di Alpinismo (SCMA; German: Central Military School for Alpinism) was inaugurated on January 9, 1934 , the establishment of which was also founded by Pope Pius XI. , the "Papa alpinista", was greeted with benevolence. On this occasion, the Kingdom of Italy completed the purchase of the Castello Jocteau for 1 million lire - a considerable sum of money at the time; it was considered a suitable and representative seat for his command, which until then had been housed in temporary rooms in Aosta.
In 1936 the school was immediately renamed “Duca degli Abruzzi” in honor of Luigi Amadeo di Savoia-Aosta, who died on March 18, 1933 in Somalia in the village of “Duca degli Abruzzi”, just like the battalion that took part in this School was stationed. The castle was consequently named with the same name with an inscription in steel letters on the massive, cylindrical tower.
The ski and alpinism school was so excellent that it brought the best Italian alpinists and skiers of the time to the castle. In 1938 she received permission to use the heraldic coat of arms, which contained the motto “Ardisci e credi” (Eng .: Be brave and believe). In the period between 1942 and September 9, 1943, the school has also been raised for training departments because of their reputation, which went beyond their normal functions: They made there way of exception "departments [off], which for the attack on Malta determined are that will never take place ”; there they experienced "the chase with snow vehicles that are never used" and "finally the most bizarre instruction: train dogs to serve as porters".
After the armistice of Cassabile, the castle was looted: not only valuable furniture was stolen, but also the most advanced sports equipment and the most valuable books from the library, while the institute's flag was rescued. By 1945 the building was converted into a warehouse and military prison. At the end of the war, from April 25, 1945, on the initiative of Kolonnel Boffa , the castle housed the Alpine Department of the National Liberation Corps, which had managed to retrieve some of the looted material and restore the park; in honor of Antonio Cantore , the castle has since been called "Castello Generale Cantore". The school was re-established on July 1, 1948 as the "Scuola Militare Alpina" (SMALP) and started operations on August 22, 1948, strengthening the reputation it had already acquired before the war and strengthening its alpinist courses all over the world and from all social classes. ref name = NaturAosta />
In 1998 the "Scuola Militare Alpina" was placed under the control of the "Comando Truppe Alpine" and became the "Centro Addestramento Alpino".
The castle is only open to the public on rare occasions, e.g. For example, for some years now, Castello Jocteau has been opening the doors of its ground floor on May 4th for the annual Esercito Italiano celebration as part of the national initiative of barracks open to the public.
Further offices of the Scuola Militare Alpina
In addition to the Castello Jocteau, the Scuola Militare Alpina has other seats: the Campagna Comando e Servizi in the Bich barracks, the Battaglione Allievi Ufficiali in the Cesare Battisti barracks, the Autosezione in the Ramires barracks, the Plotone Speciale Atleti in the Perenni barracks in Courmayeur , the Plotone Esploratori in the Mont Blanc barracks in La Thuile , the Battaglione Aosta in the Testafochi barracks in Aosta, the Squadrone Elicotteri at the Pollein heliport .
The castle as a monument
In 1983, the Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta, with the L. Reg. N. 56 of June 10, 1983, initiated a series of studies on the cultural assets on their territory. Therefore, the Commissione regional per i beni culturali ed ambientali (dt: Regional Commission for Cultural and Environmental Goods) was created, which had to be consulted by the regional government in order to “approve the list of those areas in each municipality that are on Based on cadastral plans 1: 500 and 1: 5000 as “areas of archaeological interest” and “areas of scenic interest”, and the list of “architectural monuments” based on cadastral plans. The updates to these lists are done in the same way. The monuments on the lists are protected by State Law No. 1089 of June 1, 1939. "
It was proposed in 2009 that the Castello Jocteau, as a monument and of historical and architectural interest, should be one of the buildings that should be linked to the L. Reg. 56/1983 in the variant on the master plan, with the completeness of the structure as well as the importance of the chapel and the park was pointed out.
The museum
The small museum of alpine materials preserves materials from yesterday's alpine skiing, among which stand out the valuable finds from the 19th century, which were collected thanks to the collaboration of civil and military units. There is heavy ash wood skis with curved tips that groundbreaking crampon reinforced boots of the first mountain guide of Cervino and the Alps sticks of mountain warfare at Adamello , which were called by the military "Pistocchi". In addition, devices from the avant-garde of alpine skiing are preserved there. Part of the museum collections is dedicated to the wooden statues of personalities of alpinism.
Others
The song "Il castello degli Alpini" is dedicated to the castle and the school, the text of which was written by Margherita Barsimi and the melody of which was composed by Carlo Benvenuto .
Individual references and comments
- ↑ a b Il Castello Jocteau . Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved on August 4, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Castello Cantore. Sede del Comando del centro addestramento alpino . Scuola militare alpina. Archived from the original on May 30, 2016. Retrieved on August 4, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Castello "Antonio Cantore" - Aosta . Vecio.it. July 21, 2011. Accessed August 4, 2020.
- ↑ a b Progetto definitivo del Piano regolatore variant di adeguamento al PTP (ai sensi della L.reg. 11/98): a p. 33 il castello è segnato come "edificio d'interesse n. 333" . Comune di Aosta. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- ↑ a b J. Domaine. 1987: 8, cited in
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Franco Fucci: Aosta l'università della montagna . In: Storia Illustrata No. 313 . December 1983. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- ^ Touring Club Italiano (editor): Guida d'Italia . | Chapter: Torino e Valle d'Aosta . Volume 2. 9th edition 1996. ISBN 88-36508-80-4 . P. 440.
- ↑ The 200,000 lire that the state paid in addition to the purchase price for the castle was a considerable amount of money at the time.
- ↑ Data from the information board at the entrance to the school.
- ↑ "Rocciodromo" was the name the climbing garden was given when it was built.
- ^ I castelli della Valle d'Aosta . NaturAosta.it. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- ^ Centro Addestramento Alpino - Aosta . Comando troop Alpine. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- ↑ On January 9, 1934, the Scuola Centrale Militare di Alpinismo was officially inaugurated, but it was already inaugurated on December 22, 1933 by decree with the signature of King Victor Emanuel III. was founded.
- ↑ Pius XI. contrary to the Vatican protocol, sent his congratulations in a telegram that was read publicly at the inauguration: "The mountain is a great teacher: it teaches prudent courage, supports intelligent efforts to achieve the highest goals, and brings us closer to God."
- ↑ Storia 1934-1948 . In: Website of the former students of the Scuola Militare Alpina di Aosta . Archived from the original on January 17, 2012. Retrieved on August 4, 2020.
- ↑ L. Reg. N. 56 del 10 giugno 83, Art. 5 . Consiglio Regione Autonoma Val d'Aosta. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
swell
- André Zanotto: Castelli valdostani . Musumeci, Quart (1980) 2002. ISBN 88-7032-049-9 .
- Bruno Orlandoni: Architettura in Valle d'Aosta: Dalla riforma al XX secolo . Volume III. Priuli & Verlucca, 1996. ISBN 88-8068-030-7 . Pp. 358-359.
- Franco Fucci: Aosta l'università della montagna . In: Storia Illustrata No. 313 . December 1983. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- Umberto Pelazza, Antonio Vizzi (editor): Il centro addestramento alpino. Aosta Military School . New and revised edition. Tipografia Valdostana, 2010. ISBN 88-8652-388-2 .
Web links
- Il Castello Jocteau . Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved on August 4, 2020.