Castello di Jovençan

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Castello di Jovençan
The remains of the Castello di Jovençan

The remains of the Castello di Jovençan

Alternative name (s): Castello dei Tiranni, Torre dei Tiranni
Creation time : 11th or 13th century
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Burgstall
Construction: Quarry stone
Place: Jovençan
Geographical location 45 ° 42 '44.7 "  N , 7 ° 15' 46.9"  E Coordinates: 45 ° 42 '44.7 "  N , 7 ° 15' 46.9"  E
Height: 619  m slm
Castello di Jovençan (Aosta Valley)
Castello di Jovençan

The Castello di Jovençan , including Castello dei Tiranni or Torre dei Tiranni ( French Château de Jovençan , or Château des Tyrans , or Tour of Tyrans ) is an Outbound hilltop castle in the municipality Jovençan in the Aosta Valley . The medieval castle on a rocky promontory above the Dora Baltea was literally destroyed to the ground. Today only its foundations are visible, i.e. the base of the old, cylindrical tower or keep , scattered heaps of building blocks and traces of the robust surrounding wall , which give an idea of ​​the extent of the complex. The remains of the castle are often confused with the more visible remains of the Torre dei Salassi , which are located on the same rocky promontory a little lower next to a castle chapel that is now called Saint-Georges-en-Châtelair .

history

Because of the small extent of the ruins and - as also happens in analogous cases of castles of the "simple" type in the Aosta Valley - because of the lack of detailed investigations, the dating of the construction of the castle varies depending on the source. The historian Giuseppe Giacosa writes :

"The only permanent house in Jovençan was notorious over the centuries as the" Castello dei Tiranni "(English: tyrannical castle), but it is an 11th century building and the ruins date from the 14th century."

According to other sources, the Jovensano family , who also owned a permanent house in Pompiod and whose family name is derived from the name of the previous owner, Juventius vom Fundus Joventianus , had the Castello di Jovençan built probably around the 13th century on the territory of the municipality of Jovençan ( at that time under the jurisdiction of Aymavilles ). The architect Carlo Nigra, on the other hand, does not assume a specific year of construction, but confirms that the castle already existed in 1430.

Most of the sources believe that the castle was destroyed in the 14th century. Due to the dynamism of events, there are two versions of the story: For Nigra , the castle was destroyed by the population, who had grown tired of the harassment of the castle's owners, the "tyrants" from which the castle gets its name. The greater part of the sources, on the other hand, assume that the castle, like other military buildings in the Aosta Valley, was destroyed as a punishment by the Counts of Savoy : from 1191 the House of Savoy carried out a campaign to concentrate its power by carrying out the various local lords Acts of submission or forced sales forced obedience, thus depriving them of their rule and jurisdiction, often using either the masters themselves or the growing Challant family as fief takers on new terms. Some families, such as Majori Curia in Aymavilles, bowed to the new course, while others who were too indulgent or unwilling to give up sovereignty over their territory did not bow to it and were therefore exterminated. The Jovensanos were among the latter: they were stripped of their rights to Charvensod and their castle was razed to the ground in 1354, while Pompiod's permanent house was seriously damaged.

"Elle a fini peu de tems apprès, puisqu'elle se fit nouvellement maltraitter par le comte Amé dit le Vert, qui leur osta non seulement leur jurisdiction et leur biens, censes, rentes et devoirs féodaux [...] ce mesme prince [ ...] fit encore demolir et leur raser château. " (dt.:[Die dynasty Jovensano ] came a little later to an end, because it was again [Amadeus VI. of Savoy], called" Green Count ", abused, who not only took over their jurisdiction, their goods, their subjects, their income and their feudal rights (...), but the same nobleman (...) also had their castle destroyed and shaved off to the ground.)

The rule of the Jovensanos over the Castello di Jovençan ended and Amadeus VI. of Savoy gradually appropriated the parishes and lands of the rule of Aymaville, to which the castle belonged; he refused the jurisdiction of Aymavilles on February 24, 1357 to Aimone di Challant for 1700 guilders. Thus Aimone di Challant became a fiefdom, while many of his previous masters became his vassals. Of the six parishes of the denial (Chevrot, Gressan, La Madelaine, Jovençan, Saint-Martin and Saint-Léger), Jean-Baptiste de Tillier classified that of Jovençan as "mediocre". The successors of Aimone di Challant , the Challant of the Aymavilles branch, who had inherited the birthright with the county of the Challants, converted the lands and their possessions into a baronate in 1532 .

In 1784, a royal edict ended the feudal system and as a result, the lord of the mandate over Aymavilles, Baron Philippe-Maurice di Challant , had to accept the liquidation of his feudal rights in exchange for a one-off sum: The Castello di Jovençan remained in his hands until 1789 the Challant-Aymavilles family , then the municipalities of Gressan, Jovençan and Aymavilles replaced it for a sum of 71,500 lire, payable within 20 years.

After centuries of decline, the Jovençan commune, together with the communes of Gressan and Aymavilles, in collaboration with the Assessorato Istruzione e Cultura della Regione Val d'Aosta, designed a historical-cultural path that assessed the sights of these communes, including the area of ​​the castle was.

description

Today only a few remains of the keep in the middle and traces of the surrounding wall are preserved. In the 17th century, following the plague of 1630, the Saint-Georges chapel was built near the castle .

"[...] Leur château et maison forte [...] etoit située sur une élévation de terrain faisant face du costé du septentrion sur la rivière de Doere où il y avoit une tor ronde, de laquelle il en reste encore un lambeau . Le reste de leur batiment estoit plus bas au pied de cette élévation, au levant de l'endroit où est à présent la chapelle de Saint-Georges et où etoit anciennement leur chapelle, et parmi des vignobles, avec une big tour quarrée sur une autre élévation de terrain faisant face sur le midy, qui a été laissée en son entier, quoique decouverte. Il paroit par les vestiges qui restent de ces batiments qu'ils ont été rasés et abbatus jusques à fleur de terre. Les murailles en sont d'une prodigieuse epaisseur et bien solid. Les debris de cette abbattement sont epars ça et là dans les vignes des environs, dont les uns sont couverts de trellies et les autres servent à faire les separations des pieces de divers particuliers à qui elles appartiennent à présent. ” (German: (. ..) their castle or permanent house was on an elevation opposite the north bank of the river Dora, where a round tower was found, of which only a piece remained. The rest of their construction is further down at the foot of the elevation, in the east of the village where the chapel of Saint-Georges is located and where their chapel used to stand, and between the vineyards [there is] a thick, square tower on a further elevation to the south, which has remained intact, although covered. It looks like traces that are left of these buildings that have been shaved off and torn down to the ground. The walls there are of considerable thickness and very solid. The rubble from that demolition is here and there in the vineyards Scattered around the area where some are covered by branches and the others act as dividing walls between the properties of various private individuals who currently own them.)

The foundations and the remains of buildings on the rocky promontory of Châtellair probably come from different eras: the tower without a roof east of the chapel, the so-called Torre dei Salassi or Tour de Cordèle , probably dates from a time after the castle was built.

Individual references and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d e L'archivio storico comunale . Comune di Jovençan. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  2. ^ Giuseppe Giacosa: I castelli valdostani . LF Cogliatti. P. 14.1905. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  3. ↑ Jean-Baptiste de Tillier writes that there were not only the Jovensanos on the site , but also the De Plantata and Dei Pompiod families .
  4. ^ A b c Jean-Baptiste de Tillier: Historique de la vallée d'Aoste . L. Mensio. Pp. 74-76. (1737) 1887. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  5. ↑ a b Sandro Pépellin, Andreino Colliard: Jovençan , published for the XXVII. Concours Cerlogne in Jovençan, 8. – 10. May 1989. Musumeci, Quart 1989. p. 38.
  6. ^ A b Carlo Nigra: Torri e castelli e case forti del Piemonte dal 1000 al secolo XVI. La Valle d'Aosta . Musumeci, Quart 1974. p. 102.
  7. ↑ The year the castle was destroyed, which Nigra mentions, 1430, is probably based on oral tradition. It is rather unlikely because it was mentioned in documents about the fiefdom of Aimone di Challant after that time . The castle was hardly destroyed when it belonged to the Challants , the great builders and restorers of the castles in the Aosta Valley.
  8. ^ Castelli . Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  9. ↑ a b Sandro Pépellin, Andreino Colliard: Jovençan , published for the XXVII. Concours Cerlogne in Jovençan, 8. – 10. May 1989. Musumeci, Quart 1989. p. 39.
  10. ^ Jean-Baptiste de Tillier: Nobilaire du Duché d'Aoste . Pp. 303-305. Quoted in
  11. ↑ a b Sandro Pépellin, Andreino Colliard: Jovençan , published for the XXVII. Concours Cerlogne in Jovençan, 8. – 10. May 1989. Musumeci, Quart 1989. p. 40.
  12. ↑ a b c «Mon clocher. Paroisse de Jovençan »: L'Echo de nos montagnes. Bulletin paroissial du Diocèse d'Aoste . XXXV., N.12. Issogne: Tipografia parrocchiale, Issogne December 1994. p. 80.
  13. ↑ Jovençan: il rilancio passa dal patrimonio culturale . Le Travail No. 9/63. June 5, 2011. Retrieved March 2, 2012.

swell

  • Jean-Baptiste de Tillier: Historique de la vallée d'Aoste . L. Mensio. (1737) 1887. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  • Giuseppe Giacosa: I castelli valdostani . LF Cogliatti. 1905. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  • Carlo Nigra: Torri e castelli e case forti del Piemonte dal 1000 al secolo XVI. La Valle d'Aosta . Musumeci, Quart 1974.
  • «Mon clocher. Paroisse de Jovençan »: L'Echo de nos montagnes. Bulletin paroissial du Diocèse d'Aoste . XXXV., N.12. Issogne: Tipografia parrocchiale, Issogne December 1994. pp. 76-80.
  • Sandro Pépellin, Andreino Colliard: Jovençan , published on the XXVII. Concours Cerlogne in Jovençan, 8.-10. May 1989. Musumeci, Quart 1989. pp. 33-40.
  • Robert Berton: Château des Tyrans in Les Châteaux du Val d'Aoste . Rigois, Turin. 12th edition 1956. p. 26.

Web links

Commons : Castello di Jovençan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Castelli . Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  • Il Comune di Jovençan . Comunità montana Monte Emilius.
  • Elisa Tealdi: Comune di Jovençan . Sistema Informativo Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche. February 28, 2006. Retrieved August 6, 2020.