Malaspina-Dal Verme Castle, Bobbio, Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe

The Malaspina-Dal Verme di Bobbio castle is a mighty quadrangular building located inside the town, in an elevated position in the upper part of the town and above the park of the same name. It is included in the circuit of the Association of Castles of the Duchy of Parma, Piacenza and Pontremoli. Since December 2014, the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities has been managing it through the Emilia-Romagna Museum Complex, which in December 2019 became the Regional Directorate for Museums. The village of Bobbio began to be fortified, with the construction of the walls, in the thirteenth century, a document of 1219 mentions a castle castle. The construction of the fort, as we see it today, is due to Corradino Malaspina in the early fourteenth century. It was built next to the Basilica of San Pietro, which had been built before the arrival of San Colombano by an unknown missionary who evangelized the primitive Roman village, the church bore the dedication to St. Peter, and Colombano in 614 found it almost in ruins , after having restored it, he chose it as a cenobial church around which the primitive monastery grew. In the turbulent period of the struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the castle was a garrison of the Guelphs, where the nobles fleeing from the assaults brought by the Municipality of Piacenza (Ghibellino) to the castles of the Trebbia valley took refuge. In 1342 it became a possession of the Visconti of Milan, in 1413 it was conquered by the Anguissola di Travo for only one year, it returned to the Visconti who in 1436 assigned the castle with the title of count to the Dal Verme who kept it in possession with alternating events until its suppression of feudalism. The neglected structure, which was beginning to go into disrepair, was sold in 1814 to Paolo dalla Cella and his heirs and ceded to the state in 1956. Currently it can be visited and is part of the castles of the "Castles of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza" association. The tower of the Bishop is the oldest part, built after 1014 near the basilica of San Pietro, probably a bell tower then adapted for defensive purposes. Before the construction of the castle the troops were housed there, it was lowered at an unspecified time. The Castle is consisting of a massive keep with a rectangular base to which are connected a round turret, a square one and other small buildings, the guards' quarters and a recently built one, much lower than the keep. All the buildings are made of stone with brick inserts, have small windows and are all equipped with tile roofs. There are traces of two entrances equipped with a drawbridge, in ancient times only the north-west entrance gave access to the keep. The keep has five floors with rooms with barrel ceilings and inlaid wooden floors; the first three for residential use, the fourth for housing the troops and the last for defensive maneuvers, consists of an attic supported by four pillars today illuminated by 18 recently opened windows, originally there were only splayed slits. There were two walls, the innermost, which surrounds the keep closely, has a quadrangular shape and appears to be built on an embankment that keeps the castle in an elevated position. Today no trace remains of the external walls, demolished in 1858, from the eighteenth-century plans it appears that the manor was connected to an external wall with fortified doors, which inside had two other towers: the small tower and the tower of Primatello. The legend of the knife pit is told, located near the castle in the basement of the circular south-east tower, now filled and closed; it would have been a well with the conduit lined with numerous sharp blades, protruding and placed horizontally and communicating with a dungeon with no way out. Who ended up in it is not known, probably enemies of the lord and unwelcome people, but there are also tales of young women kidnapped by various castellans. In the stories of the last owners of the castle, reference is also made to the fact that those who were thrown into the well in question preferred to throw themselves against the blades on the edges, in order to avoid the agony in the dungeon; it is also said of "ghosts", there are those who swear to have seen them above the walls, perhaps of those condemned to this torture.