CastelBrando

The rock above Cison di Valmarino, 370 metres above sea level, was settled from the paleo-Venetic period and stayed occupied through Roman, Ostrogothic and Lombard times. The Romans put a fort here to guard the communications between northern Italy and the lands beyond the Alps: its garrison held the country between the Piave and the Livenza so that the pre-Alpine stretch of the Via Claudia Augusta could be built in safety. The castrum is dated to AD 46 and is still visible; excavation has turned up a bread oven three metres across of the same period, the Roman baths, and the aqueduct pipes fed by three nearby springs that still supply the castle.

A true fortification was raised on the foundations of the Roman castrum in the early Middle Ages, perhaps in the first half of the 10th century during the Hungarian raids. In 962 the Emperor Otto I granted Sicardo, Bishop of Ceneda, the prerogatives of a count together with jurisdiction over the Valmareno, and the stronghold became the seat of a small fief that the bishops passed to a succession of vassals.

An unconfirmed tradition has the fief passing about the year 1000 to the da Porcia and from them to the Colfosco. What is certain is that the castle formed part of the dowry Sofia di Colfosco brought to Guecellone III da Camino in 1154, and it stayed with his descendants without a break until 1335, when the house died out in Rizzardo III. Gherardo III da Camino, the great feudal lord and military leader, was born there in 1240, and in the 13th century the family greatly enlarged it, ringing it with Guelph-Ghibelline battlements and raising a central tower.

Extinction left the castle disputed for some years between Bishop Francesco Ramponi and Gherardo V and Rizzardo IV da Camino, distant kinsmen of the last lord. Venetian mediation awarded it to the Caminesi — but by 1349 Rizzardo IV, to secure a loan from the Republic, had made it over to Marino Faliero, the future doge.

After Faliero's execution in 1355 the castle became the seat of a Venetian podestà, and remained one until 1436, taking the shock of several invading armies in those years: the Carraresi, the patriarchate of Aquileia, and Venice again. A memorable assault came in 1411, delivered by a league of Carraresi, Scaligeri, Hungarians and Caminesi — the last of whom had never renounced their claim to the fortress — under the command of Pippo Spano. The castle was afterwards made subject to Ercole da Camino, whose lordship Venice confirmed by agreement; on his death the Serenissima resumed full possession.

In 1436 the Republic granted the castle to two soldiers of fortune in its service, Brandolino IV Brandolini of Forlì and Erasmo da Narni, better known as Gattamelata; on a military promotion Gattamelata made over his share entirely to Brandolini. The Brandolini were lords of the castle thereafter.

Venetian rule brought a long peace, and once the castle's military functions had lapsed the Brandolini adapted it, between the 16th and 18th centuries, into a seigneurial residence in the manner of the Venetian villas, with a heating system remarkable for its date. In the first half of the 16th century Antonio Maria Brandolini (1476-1522) had engineers enlarge the central block in Sansovino style, adding Venetian Gothic two- and three-light windows. In 1700 the family engaged Ottavio Scotti, architect and Count of Treviso, to build an extension on the southern side, the works including a castle chapel, the church of San Martino, whose interior was frescoed by Egidio Dall'Oglio. The Venetian Republic fell in 1797; the Brandolini kept the castle.

During the First World War the castle was overrun by Imperial Austrian forces and used as a military hospital, the Brandolini abandoning it for their villa at Solighetto. Ten years of restoration paid for by Count Girolamo IV Brandolini (1870-1935) allowed it to reopen as a residence in 1929. In 1959 the family sold it to the Salesian fathers, who altered its structure to serve as a seminary and place of retreat.

The Salesians sold it on in 1997 to the entrepreneur Massimo Colomban, who owns it still; an extensive programme of renovation turned the castle into a four-star hotel, museum and theatre. The commercial name CastelBrando, from Brando I of the Brandolini, dates from that sale. Listed as Italian national heritage, the castle hosted the first G8 agriculture ministers' meeting from 18 to 20 April 2009, convened by the then agriculture minister Luca Zaia.