Castle Map

Castle

Castello dell'Innominato

Italy

Heritage status
Italian national heritage
Location
Vercurago
Coordinates
45.81519°, 9.42656°
Castello dell'Innominato in Italy
Photo: Maurizio Moro5153 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

The Castello dell'Innominato, historically known as the Rocca di Vercurago, is a fortification dating from the 13th century, set on a height on the boundary between the municipalities of Lecco and Vercurago. According to popular tradition the writer Alessandro Manzoni, in his novel I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), took this fortress as his inspiration for the setting of the residence of the Innominato (the Unnamed).

The castle stands on the Tremasasso, a height of limestone rock on the slopes of Monte Magnodeno, inhabited since the early Iron Age by the Golasecca culture. Probably of early medieval origin, in the 13th century the castle was owned by the Benaglio family, vassals of the Della Torre of Milan, and then became part of the possessions of the Republic of Venice after the Peace of Lodi. With the arrival of the Spanish in Lombardy the castle was incorporated, together with the Malanotte and Somasca, into the Duchy of Milan, while Vercurago remained with the Republic of Venice. The castle was destroyed several times and, after being razed to the ground in 1799 during Suvorov's Italian campaign, was partially rebuilt by the Somascan Fathers towards the end of the 19th century.

The tower of the castle houses the sculptural representation of an episode from the life of Saint Girolamo Emiliani, the last of a series of chapels in the religious complex of the Sacro Monte di Somasca.

Machine-translated from “Castello dell'Innominato” on the Italian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the rankings

Castello dell'Innominato ranks #6,453 of 9,902 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #450 of the 624 mapped in Italy. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,408 times in the last 60 days, more than 65% of the atlas. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Lugano, 42 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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