The Castello Galli is probably the oldest building in La Loggia, and telling its history apart from the village's is all but impossible. From the loggia on its turret comes, according to the most accepted version, the very name of the municipality.
What to see
The northern part has kept its medieval character, while the southern front was rebuilt in the early eighteenth century: the castle reads in two phases, and the line between them is visible. It is one of the symbols the community recognises itself in, so much so that the town's gonfalon bears a rooster, in memory of the family that owned it.
Visiting
The castle began as a fortress, to defend the territory from intruders and at the same time to keep in check the people of the surrounding farmsteads: it was Giacomo Darmelli who fortified it, and for doing so without licence from the prince of Acaja he was put on trial, only to be acquitted and recognised as lord of La Loggia. With the Galli, who arrived in 1773 through the marriage of the last Darmelli, the building changed trade and became the place around which the townspeople's participation in the life of their community was born.
Our editors' tip
The most recent part of the story is the least cheerful. An affair of bequests and inheritances marked the last years of the countess Maria Laura Galli, in old age swayed by a religious authority unworthy of the trust she had given it; with her, in 1978, the local branch of the family died out, and the castle long remained a closed and private place, far from the villagers.