Italy · Restored
Vezio Castle
Castello di Vezio
Castello di Vezio is a medieval hilltop castle above Varenna and Lake Como in northern Italy. Its most distinctive element is a tall stone main tower with square merlons and surrounding curtain walls. The site is open to the public and contains gardens and museum displays in modern times.
Its prime
1200
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1200
What Vezio Castle looked like in its prime.
A tall, rectangular main tower rises above lower curtain walls, all built of pale grey local stone; the tower and walls are topped by high crenellations with distinctive square merlons. The curtain walls run irregularly along a steep, wooded rocky slope, forming an enclosed bailey set above the village below. Tree cover and terraces sit on the hillside; the silhouette is jagged where towers and battlements project above the tree-line, with no modern additions.
Its story
The story of Vezio Castle.
Refuge from the Attacks of Como
The castle stands on a spur of Monte Fopp in the Val d'Esino, above Varenna, on ground that lies almost entirely in Varenna and in small part in Perledo. It is dated to the eleventh or early twelfth century and was reworked repeatedly in the centuries that followed. Its tower, of the communal period, formed the core of a fortified village in which the people of Varenna and refugees from the Isola Comacina took shelter during the attacks pressed by the men of Como after that island had been laid waste.
The rocca followed the fortunes of Varenna, to which it was joined by walls running down to the lake to defend the village. Remains of Iron Age tombs, together with weapons and armour, were found in the area in the late nineteenth century and again in 1956.
Episcopal Fief to the Greppi
With Varenna, the site became a fief of the bishops. It belonged for a long period to the Lattuada family of Lierna, and was also once Sfondrati property. It is now held by the Greppi family of Milan, and is protected as Italian national heritage.
Howitzers of the Frontiera Nord
During the First World War an emplacement was installed just below the castle as part of the Frontiera Nord, the northern-frontier defences commonly, if loosely, known as the Linea Cadorna after General Luigi Cadorna, chief of staff of the Italian army. The works were prepared against a possible German thrust south through neutral Swiss territory. This position was sited to fire in enfilade down the valley running from Porlezza to Menaggio, and housed 75 mm howitzers. Its tunnels lie beneath the castle gardens and can be walked in part.
The Lariosaurus in the Tower, Open Since 1999
Partially restored in the middle of the twentieth century, the castle opened to the public in 1999. The tower holds a permanent exhibition on Lariosaurus, a Middle Triassic marine reptile of up to about a metre in length that took its name from the lake after its discovery at Perledo in 1830. Most specimens come from beds a few hundred metres from the castle, and the display gathers casts of those found around Perledo, at Varese and further afield. A raptor centre kept and flew birds in the gardens for some years, and a Eurasian eagle-owl named Artú was among the birds at the castle; falconry displays ended in 2022.
Step inside
5 places to explore in 1200.
The record describes 5 distinct spots at Vezio Castle, including 1 interior: interior chamber of the main tower (keep). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Vezio Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1200, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Vezio Castle.
The families that held Vezio Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Greppi
The castle's current owners; the Greppi family of Milan hold Castello di Vezio today.
Nearby
