Patron saint festival In 110 days
Saint Blaise, patron of Castelbelforte
📅 Every year, on 3 February
Castelbelforte celebrates Saint Blaise on 3 February.
The official name celebrates a castle that no longer exists, and the dialect remembers two that were there before. In Mantuan the village is called I Castèi, that is the castles, as the area was already called in documents of the eleventh century: there were two of them, divided by the Essere torrent that runs through the village, and they stood on a border land long disputed between Verona and Mantua.
In the fifteenth century the Gonzaga, having got the upper hand, built a massive castle here to make that border safe, and around it grew a settlement called Bonafisso, which at the beginning of the sixteenth century took the name of Due Castelli. In 1680 the name was changed again, to Castelbelforte: a homage to the building that had managed to stand up to invaders. The castle survived intact until 1800, when its tower was pulled down, and today no trace of it remains. Three thousand and sixty-nine inhabitants in the province of Mantua, a little north-east of the city.
The Castelbelforte guide
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Castelbelforte 1
No events match these filters.
🍝 The flavours of Castelbelforte
Sbrisolona crumbly almond and cornmeal cake, broken by hand
White and yellow flour, almonds, butter and sugar, broken by hand: sbrisolona is Mantova's cake, already served at the Gonzaga court.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Castelbelforte
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Castelbelforte, but an easy day trip away.
Basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta 📍 Carpi · 24 km Carpi cathedral begun in 1514 to Peruzzi's design, reopened in 2017 after the 2012 earthquake. Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola 📍 Carpi · 24 km Jesuit church of 1670-1682 in Carpi, on a Greek-cross plan, with scagliola altars and the diocesan museum. Chiesa di Santa Maria in Castello 📍 Carpi · 24 km Romanesque pieve of 1184, the oldest church in Carpi, with a Peruzzi façade and twelfth-century frescoes. Chiesa di San Bernardino da Siena 📍 Carpi · 24 km Patron church of Carpi, begun in 1604, with the reliquary bust of Saint Bernardino of Siena.