Italy · 14th century
The Castello di Felino or Felino Castle is a medieval manor house located on a hillside location at Al Castello Road 1 in Felino, in the province of Parma, region of Emilia Romagna, Italy; the building is home to a restaurant and the Felino salami museum.
Although the village of Felino had been founded before 948, the year in which King Lothair II of Italy granted Count Manfredo di Ugo of Parma the rights over the Curtis Filinum and fifteen others in the territory, the first certain news of the existence of a castrum in Felino date back to 1140, when Abbess Agnese of St. Alexander of Parma succeeded in having Pope Innocent II recognize the monastery's rights over the chapels of St. Peter and St. Christopher, placed one inside and the other outside the fortress.
In 1186, at the end of the struggle between Frederick Barbarossa and the Italian Communes, the fiefdom of Felino, along with the lands of San Michele de' Gatti, Barbiano, Carignano, and Paderno, was awarded by the Emperor to Guido de' Ruggeri of Parma and his heirs, in gratitude for their loyalty.
In 1325, the troops of the Lord of Milan Azzone Visconti, allied with the Pallavicino family, attacked the Parmense, sacking numerous villages, including Felino, which was set on fire; the castle, strenuously defended by Bonaccorso de' Ruggeri, was saved.
Thanks to a clever matrimonial policy carried out by the Rossi family, for two generations married the three descendants of the de' Ruggeri family, in 1346 the fiefdom and castle of Felino, with the lands of San Michele de' Gatti, Barbiano, Carignano, and Paderno, were bequeathed by Bonaccorso de' Ruggeri to his two sons-in-law Giacomo de' Rossi, Count of San Secondo, and Ugolino de' Rossi, the latter's cousin.
In the following years, Ugolino de' Rossi's two daughters married cousins Rolando and Bertrando, respectively Giacomo's son and grandson, whose branch thus succeeded in centralizing all the family properties scattered in the Parmense; Felino, in particular, became appurtenant to Bertrando, to whom in 1368 Rodolfo Visconti granted wide exemptions on the fief and its appurtenances, reconfirmed in 1387 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
Text adapted from “Felino Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Castello di Felino ranks #6,891 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #485 of the 560 mapped in Italy. Founded c. 1350, it is older than 55% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. 6 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Bologna, 90 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.
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