Castles and other extreme ways of living intrigue us also because we cannot understand how their inhabitants managed to live there. I collected here some facts about the life of the castle owners
“The castle is a container of memories that recovers the past and projects us towards the future.” R.Maestri of the Marquises of Monferrato
To shock you with the numbers:
Valle d'Aosta is the smallest but most fortified region in Italy. It is said that there are 120 castles there. I don't know if this number includes fortified houses (casa forte) and other fortifications, but the figure is impressive. The nearby region, Piedmont, has a province of Alessandria where there are 258 entire castles, castles in ruins, in trace, and memory. The intact castles are 42. In all the region there are 526 castles.
I've been interested in castles for a long time. I read the documents concerning the Lombards, and the Normans, and wanted to imagine their life. We think of the Middle Ages with a veil of romanticism. The brave knights, the beautiful ladies… Life probably wasn't romantic, at least how we dream it.
To see all the photos of this walk,
