Torre di Néran

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Torre di Néran
Torre di Néran under restoration

Torre di Néran under restoration

Alternative name (s): Tour Néran
Creation time : 12th Century
Castle type : Fixed house
Conservation status: restored
Construction: Quarry stone
Place: Châtillon
Geographical location 45 ° 45 '17.3 "  N , 7 ° 38' 20.2"  E Coordinates: 45 ° 45 '17.3 "  N , 7 ° 38' 20.2"  E
Height: 579  m
Torre di Néran (Aosta Valley)
Torre di Néran

The Torre di Néran , in French Tour Néran , is a permanent house in the 'Néran' district of the municipality of Châtillon in the Aosta Valley , not too far away from the village of Saint-Vincent . In the east, the Neyran brook delimits the property, which consists of a massive tower with a square floor plan, the remains of a surrounding wall and various buildings that were gradually added to the tower. The property is now on the road to Col de Joux and is currently being restored.

description

The tower

The keep with a floor plan of 7.5 meters by 7.5 meters is 14.6 meters high and was built from large stone blocks that, according to castle specialist André Zanotto, allow it to be dated to the 12th century.

Construction site of the restoration of the complex

With a wall thickness of 1.85 meters, according to Mauro Cortellazzo and colleagues , the Torre di Néran shows numerous analogies with other towers in the Aosta Valley, in contrast to earlier studies (e.g. that of Guglielmo Lange in 1969 or that of André Zanotto in 1980): The walls of considerable thickness, the massive structure and the construction technology, 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 Arnad 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. "

Windows on the west facade of the tower in detail

The old entrance door is 8 meters above the ground on the south side of the tower, as was customary in the Middle Ages for defense reasons, and above it is a blind arch, which is now almost invisible under the plaster layer that was later applied. The weathering has meant that a graffito on the plaster layer, which shows a heraldic coat of arms, which according to Berton can be assigned to the aristocratic Chandiou family , is difficult to see. Over the centuries, access was provided via a wooden balcony , the function of which changed from that of defense to that of easy access to the upper floor.

At the height of a recess one meter above today's ground, the height of which does not correspond to the ground of that time, a subsequent threshold opens.

On the east side, facing the brook, the tower has a single loopholes , while the grooves for the construction and support beams indicate four floors inside.

More buildings

Cultivation in the east of the complex

Several buildings were later added to the east. The directly adjoining house has three floors.

history

The tower and the surrounding wall, which in their design correspond to simple castles in the Aosta Valley, represent the oldest core of the complex and date from the 12th century.

A document from Philip I of Savoy comes from 1268 in which a "Turre de Neran cum claustro" (German: Torre di Néran with enclosure) is mentioned.

The Chandiou family , the first owners of the tower, were headed by the notary Pietro Chandiou , the descendant of an illegitimate daughter of a noble Challant , who brought him a rich dowry through marriage. Within just one generation, the Chandiou family managed to be ennobled - in 1581 - and adopted the Latin Catholic expression “Sub umbra alarum tuarum” (In the shadow of your wings) as their motto.

In the years 1520–1521 she had a series of works carried out on the fortified complex of Néran.

The Aosta Valley Region's first plans to restore the complex date back to the 1980s, but it wasn't until 2008 that actual restoration work began. In 2013, the work, managed by Tour Néran srl , the current owner of the property, and at the instigation of the Sopraintendenza per i beni e le attività culturali della Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta , was still in progress.

Individual references and comments

  1. ↑ a b c André Zanotto: Castelli valdostani . Musumeci, Quart (1980) 2002. ISBN 88-7032-049-9 . P. 82.
  2. ↑ The road to the Col de Joux is much younger than the Torre di Néran.
  3. ^ A b 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. S. 112. 2008. Accessed July 7, 2020.
  4. ^ 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. S. 115. 2008. Accessed July 7, 2020.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ^ A b 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. S. 114. 2008. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  8. ^ 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. 126. 2008. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  9. ↑ Bruno Orlandoni: Cronologia documentaria dell'architettura e delle arti figurative in Valle d'Aosta dall'XI secolo all'epoca napoleonica . In: Storia . Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta. Retrieved July 7, 2020.

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Web links

Commons : Torre di Néran  - Collection of images, videos and audio files