The castle of Rovereto stands on a rocky rise above the Leno stream and overlooks piazza Podestà, where the town hall is. Its origins lie between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the lords of Lizzana and then the Castelbarco. Its present form was given by the Venetians, who occupied it in 1416 and turned it into an artillery fortress: to them, and to the engineers Giacomo Coltrino and Bartolomeo d'Alviano, are owed the polygonal plan, the walls with their sentry walks, the bastions with dozens of gun ports, the moat and a siege well 57 metres deep. In 1487 the troops of Sigismund of Austria took it after a siege of 37 days; Venice won it back and held it until 1509, when it passed to the Habsburgs.
What to see
The towers bear the names of patrons and builders: Marino, Malipiero and Coltrino. The Marino tower, raised after 1492 on the east corner, is about 25 metres high, with a diameter at the base of 16. At the end of the fifteenth century, to protect the walls from artillery, an embankment of earth, gravel and lime was built between the towers.
Since 1921 the castle has housed the Museo storico italiano della guerra, the Italian war history museum. In the Marino tower the weapons of knights and foot soldiers from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century are displayed, in the Malipiero those from prehistory to the Middle Ages. Until 1961 Maria Dolens, the Bell of the Fallen, was also here, before being moved to the Miravalle hill.
Visiting
Opening times and tickets should be checked on the website of the Museo storico italiano della guerra.
Our editors' tip
Having lost its military importance in the seventeenth century, the castle suffered fires, the last in 1797, and uses of every kind: poorhouse, prison and, from 1859 to 1918, barracks of the Kaiserjäger. During the First World War it was shelled by Italian artillery.
