Castello di Mestre
| Castello di Mestre | ||
|---|---|---|
| Creation time : | 11th century 14th century |
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| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | tore off | |
| Standing position : | Venetian nobility | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone | |
| Place: | Mestre | |
| Geographical location | 45 ° 29 '42.9 " N , 12 ° 14' 10.2" E | |
| Height: | 2 m slm | |
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With Castello di Mestre two different are fortresses called - Castel Vecchio (Old Castle) and Castel Nuovo (New Castle) called - that in a suburb and the port of Mestre in the Italian region of Veneto were built and have now disappeared.
Castelvecchio
In the 11th century, the bishops of Treviso , the local lords, had the old castle built. It was first a fiefdom of the Counts of Treviso and then the Collalto family . The castle was located where the two arms of the Marzenego River separate, west of the suburb of San Lorenzo , roughly where the former Umberto I hospital is now (the entrance from Via Terraglio leads straight through Castelvecchio). The purpose of the fortress was to control the area in which the important river port of Porto di Cavergnago was located, a stop on the river that allowed barter between Trevisio and Venice and existed through access to the hinterland. The existence of the fortress at this time is also confirmed by the papal bull Justis fratum of 1152, by Pope Eugene III. recognized the ownership of the castle, the port and the settlement to Bishop Boniface .
The castle was stormed as early as 1237, captured by the troops of Ezzelino da Romano around 1245 and occupied until 1250. In 1257, the bishop finally left Adalberto III. Ricco forced the administration to the brother of Ezzelino, Albeico da Romano , Podestà of Trevisio. The municipality of Treviso later appointed a capitano to manage the fortress and the settlement.
In 1274 the old castle was almost completely destroyed by a great fire. In 1317, Cangrande della Scala began to threaten Treviso, so the Castello di Mestre was reinforced as a countermeasure. In 1318 the Scaliger tried again to take the fortress, but it withstood every attack. But in 1323 the castle, together with Treviso, fell under the rule of Verona .
The rule of the Scaliger was short; threatened by the growing power of the Veronese on the mainland, Venice responded by initiating a phase of determined conquest that made her ruler over the whole of Veneto in a short time . So in 1337 the castle was captured by bribing the garrison, and on September 29th it came under the control of the Republic of Venice , which began the construction of a new castle ( Castelnuovo ).
The Da Carrara family was supposed to request the concession for the still existing Castelvecchio together with Castelnuovo from Venice again in 1380 . The former was increasingly abandoned and finally completely demolished in 1453 when the Doge of Venice , Francesco Foscari , allowed the Venetian brothers of San Salvador to build a monastery on this site , which happened between 1468 and 1470.
Castelnuovo
The new castle ( Castelnuovo ), which forms the simple core of today's urban settlement Mestre, is characterized by the foothills of three major streets: Strada Padovana (today Via Miranese ) towards Padua , Via Terraglio towards Treviso and Via Castellana (today state road 245) towards Trento and Tyrol .
After the conquest by the Venetians in 1337, new strategic necessities brought about the creation of a new, artificial canal, the Fossa Gradeniga , which, by connecting the suburb of Mestre directly with the Venetian lagoon , emphasized the importance of the small town on the old port of Cavergnago and on The river of the Marzenago enlarged and forced the construction of a new, larger fortress.
The new defense complex was built east of Castelvecchio (which was on the site of the Roman castrum ) and north of the suburb, where there used to be defensive towers of the tower houses that belonged to the old families of the area.
In 1108 the Counts of Collalto built the clock tower of Mestre, which became the origin of the new location of the town's fort.
The new castle had at least 11 towers (maybe 15 or 16) with three gates, formed from the pre-existing towers: Porta Altino or Porta di Molini in the east, Porta Belfredo in the west and Porta di Borgo or Porta della Loza in the south . These gates were also called "customs gates" because the customs were collected there by the traders.
The building was in the shape of a shield and its circumference was more than a kilometer.
In the middle, the “mastio” (main tower) was erected, where the Palazzo della Provvederia was subsequently built. At the front was the Palazzo del Capitano , in which the "Reggimento" of Venice (city administration) resided. Her title was Podestà e Capitano .
The most important towers were arranged in the extreme north and housed living quarters and weapons stores. The whole complex was surrounded by a ditch that was supplied with water from the Marzenego River.
In 1509, during the War of the League of Cambrai , the Venetian forces, under the command of Count Pitigliano, after retreating in succession to the Battle of Agnadello , barricaded themselves in the castle of Mestre, which was the outermost bulwark on the mainland and from who set out from the troops to save the besieged Treviso and to recapture Padua, which was occupied by the Holy Roman Empire . But in 1513 the castle had to face another enemy attack, this time by the French , who set it on fire but were equally repulsed. In honor of the heroic resistance, the city received the title “Mestre Fidelissima” (most faithful Mestre) from the Venetian “Serenissima”.
In the 18th century the walls of the castle, which were now considerably weakened and made unusable by new war techniques, were torn down; All that remains is the clock tower (the old "Porta di Borgo") and its twin, "Torre Belfredo". The latter was killed a little later in the 19th century. In Via Torre Belfredo , the pavement still shows traces of the foundations at the location of the old tower.
The few remains of Castelnuovo that can still be seen today are (from the "Torre Civica" clockwise): a wall remnant inside the courtyard of the savings bank, the gardens on Via Torre Belfredo (in the former bed of the moat), where about 150 meters of the wall can be seen, as well as a watchtower (which was later converted into an apartment), the signs of the demolished Torre Belfredo under the pavement of the street of the same name, the Torre Angolare on Via Spalti (inside the open space of the municipal Parking garage), which was also converted for residential use in the 18th century, the signs (in the pavement) on the bridge overlooking the Torre Altinate (the third gate of the Castello di Mestre, on the road to Altino, today "Via Caneve" ) and the foundations of an intermediate watchtower , which were discovered at the beginning of the 2000s and which are located “exactly in the corner” at what is now Parco Ponci .
In April 2009, work began to “free” the clock tower from components that were built to protect it during the building expansion after the Second World War .
Bell jar
The sound of the bell of the clock tower or Castello di Mestre corresponds to the note A ' . The bell is struck electrically from the inside.
Web links and sources
- Mestre Archeologica . Archived from the original on October 5, 2012. Retrieved July 25, 2019.