Altavilla Vicentina

The name Altavilla appears for the first time in a diploma of the year one thousand, by which the emperor Otto III granted the bishop of Vicenza, Gerolamo, leave to build fortifications on the hill that overlooks the village from the north. It was too good a position to be left in peace: the castle of the Rocca was coveted by one lord after another, and in 1194 it was the bishop himself who, having finally got it back, had it levelled so as not to have to defend it any more. Life on the hill nevertheless went on for a long time, because the plain reclaimed by the Romans along the via Postumia — opened in 148 before Christ and still today followed by the main road — was too exposed to raids: people lived up above and came down by day to work the fields.

In 1250 the Rocca had as its castellan a man from Apulia, Giovanni da Apricena, who had come to the Veneto perhaps in command of Frederick II's army, and on his death his son Roberto succeeded him. Not far off, at Valmarana — a name that may come from a Marius, a legionary paid with this land, or simply from maranus, the marsh — the family of the same name had the church of San Biagio built in the first half of the thirteenth century, and kept a firm hold on it: it was held in juspatronatus, that is, the rector was not chosen by the bishop but elected by the Valmarana, and to the bishop was left only the confirming of him.