The castle of Breno
Section: culture Author: Angela
In the culture space of this week, I think it’s important to give you some information about the small village in which I live. These news are in particular about the best monument in Breno: the famous castle. I’m sure that few people know it, so I give you the possibility to read these news and I hope they made curiosity in you!
Good reading and good week!
To give you few but essential news about the castle of my small village, I’m using a simple but important book, which is called: “The castle of Breno”. It was realized in scholastic-years 2004/05 by Primary school, into a big project about Breno.
Thanks to the “castle project”, we had the possibility to know more about Breno, which is a small village which was covered by “Adamello glacier” 2000 years ago.
Because of climate changes, ice melted and thanks to Oglio river, Valcamonica started having vegetables.
13000 years ago, wild animals and nomadic shepherds arrived into the valley to find food.
6000 years ago, a small community created one of the first village in this zone, but it was destroyed by Romans in 16 a. C. So, these people went to Cividate Camuno.
In this period, elevated places became more and more important because of the controlling of the access ways and the castle was created in this moment.
Longobardi, who arrived here in 568 a.C. to avoid Unni (their enemies), changed its structure and they became the “Kings of the castle”. Situation changed with Franchi and Carlo Magno in 774 a. C. He gave the valley the Benedictine monastery of St. Martin de Tours to have the exclusive control of the important castle.
After this domination, the bishop of Brescia obtained the valley and the castle with the help of some marquis.
Municipal period “covered” valley for 3 centuries; in 1164, Federico Barbarossa arrived here and he made the valley an independent Republic, which was composed by small districts.
During these years, around the castle, we find a group of “houses-towers”, which were controlled by rich families (Federici, Ronchi,…). Towards the end of 1200, a big wall was created to defend the zone near the castle.
In 1300 there were wars between the bishop of Brescia and a rich family, the Visconti.
Some years later, this family conquered the valley and the Breno castle, and they stayed here until the Venetian arrive in 1427.
The history of this famous castle ended in 1598, when Venetians gave it to Breno and its inhabitants.