Castel Lizzana, which since the twentieth century many have called Castel Dante, was a castle above Lizzana, a hamlet of Rovereto, on a rise commanding the Vallagarina, the route between the Veneto and the Brenner. The site was already fortified in Roman times, as the coins and wall circuits found there show. The first written record dates from 1049, a «castrum in Lizana»; in 1208 it belonged to Jacopino da Lizzana, and around 1270 it passed to the Castelbarco, under whom, with Guglielmo the Great, it reached the height of its importance. In 1439, in the struggles between Venice and the Prince-Bishop of Trento, the Venetians besieged and destroyed it.
What to see
It was a large castle, with four circuits of walls around almost the whole hill, the main entrance to the east and the residential buildings to the north, inside a wall with the keep, another tower and the cistern. Today very little remains: a short stretch of wall, thick and high, and the well-head of the cistern.
The remains lie within the grounds of the Castel Dante military memorial: they came to light during the excavations for the ossuary, in the nineteen-thirties, and were largely covered over or destroyed to make room for the monument.
Visiting
The ruins, under restoration since the end of 2018, can be seen in the memorial grounds: times and access should be checked with those who run the memorial or with Rovereto town council.
Our editors' tip
The castle was not rebuilt because Rovereto's was too close, and the hill was later levelled for cultivation. At the start of the nineteenth century a bird-catching station was built here, and during the First World War, when the front ran through here, trenches were dug on it.
