Torre de la Plantaz

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Torre de la Plantaz
North-east facade of the Torre de la Plantaz

North-east facade of the Torre de la Plantaz

Alternative name (s): Torre de la Plantà, Tour de la Plantaz
Creation time : 11th or 12th century
Castle type : Niederungsburg
Conservation status: ruin
Construction: Quarry stone
Place: Gressan
Geographical location 45 ° 42 '58.5 "  N , 7 ° 16' 53.3"  E Coordinates: 45 ° 42 '58.5 "  N , 7 ° 16' 53.3"  E
Height: 627  m slm
Torre de la Plantaz (Aosta Valley)
Torre de la Plantaz

The Torre de la Plantaz or Torre de la Plantà , also Tour de la Plantaz , is the ruin of an old observation tower of the castle type of a fortress on the plain between the communities of Gressan and Jovençan in the Aosta Valley , about 5 minutes' walk from the Castello di Tour de Villa . Due to the risk of collapse, the tower is not open to the public.

history

While the tower's function seems clear - it was built to monitor the road across the plain over the Dora Baltea - its origin and time of construction are unknown.

Panorama and southeast facade of the tower

According to Giuseppe Giacosa , who calls it "Torre La Pianta", it was built in the 11th century, while Carlo Nigra dates the construction to the 12th century and ascribes it to the De Plantata family from the Aosta Valley, from whom it takes its name would have. A hypothesis by Guglielmo Lange , which has not been confirmed, would like to see the characteristics of the Torre de la Plantaz identical to those of Roman towers on the city wall of Augusta Praetoria ( Aosta ), which means that the construction of this tower dates back to the 1st century BC. Can be dated.

Sources agree on the fact that the tower was inhabited by the noble De Plantata or De la Plantà families in the Middle Ages , but more recent sources say they lived there more likely between the 14th and 15th centuries. During this time, the tower was subjected to a change in use; Residential buildings and buildings for the service personnel were added, as well as a wall ring and a functioning farm, of which not even traces have been preserved.

Maria , the last descendant of the De Plantata family, bequeathed the property to the Bardonanches in the middle of the 16th century . This noble family from the Dauphiné then lived in the tower for about a century.

The Bardonanches were followed by the noble Vallaise family , members of the Conseil des Commis who were loyal to the House of Savoy and, secondarily, only to the powerful noble Challant family .

Gaspard-Antoine Girodo , curator of Jovençan, bought the tower in the mid-19th century . In 1886 it was sold again to the Impérial di Gressan , which still owns it today.

description

The tower presents itself as a massive stone building with a square floor plan, a side length of 10.5 meters and a height of 14.5 meters. It has three floors, the ceilings inside have collapsed.

A central tower, which is no longer visible today, was built onto the original structure.

Northwest side of the tower

The tower has no windows, but has various loopholes on the east, west and south sides: seen from the inside, they appear splayed and consist of tuff wedges with half an arch.

The walls are over 2 meters thick: 2.6 meters at the base and 2.15 meters at the top and are still perpendicular today.

On the north side the tower has two raised doors, one 5 meters above the ground on the first floor, the other 8 meters above the ground on the 2nd floor: The installation of two raised doors, certainly at the time of the construction of the original tower unique in the Aosta Valley and typical of this type of building. Together, the doors above form a blind tympanum consisting of a stone round arch , while holes for supporting beams of the two contemporary wooden balconies that have now disappeared open on the wall at their bases , presumably connected to a wooden staircase that cannot be removed. From the balcony on the second floor there was probably a second wooden staircase leading up to the battlements , which is no longer preserved today.

At the base of the tower you can also see a series of openings about 3 meters high, which were probably used to accommodate supports for a roof, which today have disappeared without a trace. It remains to be explored how the buildings and ring of walls developed that the De Plantatas had added to transform the tower into a medieval castle.

Floor plan of the tower from 1938 (Carlo Nigra)

According to Mauro Cortellazzo , who is based on Lange and the specialist in castles in the Aosta Valley, André Zanotto , the Torre de la Plantaz shows many similarities with the Tour de l'Archet in Morgex , the Torre di Ville in Arnad and other towers in the Aosta Valley : The walls of considerable thickness, the massive structure and the construction technique, i.e. the use of sandwich walls with a core made of cast masonry .

“The Tour Malluquin in Courmayeur , the Tour de l'Archet in Morgex , the Tour Lescours in La Salle , the Torre de la Plantaz and the Torre di Sant'Anselmo in Gressan, the recently discovered tower in the Castello di Fénis , the Torre di Néran in Châtillon , the Torre di Ville in Arna and two other towers in the side valleys, the Torre di Vachéry in Etroubles and the Tour d'Hérères in Perloz . All these towers were built in places that do not have any morphological element to facilitate defense. On the contrary: the choice of flat locations, open and not always close to roads, seems clear. All of these ten structures are characterized by their particular choice of location. "

For André Zanotto , this would be the motivation that led some scholars to see similarities in the tower with Roman buildings. Zanotto, on the other hand, took the hypothesis that the more massive and perfected structures were due to the fact that all three towers were built on level ground, i.e. without natural protection.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Carlo Nigra: Torri e castelli e case forti del Piemonte dal 1000 al secolo XVI. La Valle d'Aosta . Musumeci, Quart 1974. p. 102.
  2. ^ Giuseppe Giacosa: www.archive.org I castelli valdostani . LF Cogliati. P. 14.1905. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  3. ↑ a b Mauro Minola, Beppe Ronco: Valle d'Aosta. Castelli e fortificazioni . Macchione, Varese 2002. ISBN 88-8340-116-6 . P. 45.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Torre de la Plantà . In: Territorio e Cultura - Caseforti e Castelli . Comune di Gressan. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  5. ↑ Le prime Installazioni . In: Territorio e Cultura - Riferimenti storici . Comune di Gressan. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  6. ↑ Tour de la Plantà . Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  7. ^ Roberto Domaine, Emanuela Calcagno, Mauro Cortellazzo: Il complesso fortificato di Tour Néran nel comune di Châtillon . In: Bolletino della Sopraintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali . Sopraintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali della Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. P. 123. 2008. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  8. ↑ Mauro Cortellazzo: Simbologia del potere e possesso del territorio: le torri valdo stane tra XI e XIII secolo . In: Bulletin d'études préhistoriques et archeologiques alpines, Numéro spécial consacré aux Actes du XIIe Colloquesur les Alpes dans l'Antiquité. Yenne / Savoie 2-4 octobre 2009 (par les soins de Damien Daudry) . 2010. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved on July 7, 2020.
  9. ↑ André Zanotto: Castelli valdostani . Musumeci, Quart (1980) 2002. ISBN 88-7032-049-9 . P. 9.

swell

  • C. Ratti, F. Casanova: Guida della Valle d'Aosta . 2nd edition 1888.
  • Carlo Nigra: Torri e castelli e case forti del Piemonte dal 1000 al secolo XVI. La Valle d'Aosta . Musumeci, Quart 1974. p. 102.
  • Mauro Minola, Beppe Ronco: Valle d'Aosta. Castelli e fortificazioni . Macchione, Varese 2002. ISBN 88-8340-116-6 . P. 45.
  • Mauro Cortellazzo: Simbologia del potere e possesso del territorio: le torri valdostane tra XI e XIII secolo . In: Bulletin d'études préhistoriques et archeologiques alpines, Numéro spécial consacré aux Actes du XIIe Colloquesur les Alpes dans l'Antiquité. Yenne / Savoie 2-4 octobre 2009 (par les soins de Damien Daudry) . Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  • André Zanotto: Castelli valdostani . Musumeci, Quart (1980) 2002. ISBN 88-7032-049-9 .

Web links

Commons : Torre de la Plantaz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files