Châtel-Argent Castle, Villeneuve, Italy

There have been settlements on the site of Châtel-Argent castle since prehistoric times and through the Roman Era. There is a chapel dedicated to Saint Columba of Sens which was built sometime between 1050 and 1070. The castle first appears in a document in 1176 as Castrum Argenteum. The castle was improved around 1275 under the direction of Count Peter II's architect James St. George and castle grew to the configuration we see today. This castle had always been owned by the counts and the dukes of Savoy.

The ruins can be accessed from Villaneuve by walking The Rampa, a staircase carved into the rock of the valley wall. The castle is located in the town of Villeneuve in the Aosta Valley region, at about 10 km west of the city of Aosta. The most prominent feature left in the ruins is its watchtower keep measuring just under 10 meters in diameter which overlooks the town below. The ruins themselves cover about 6,300 square meters. When the castle was whole, it was estimated to be able to hold 700 people in times of danger.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

paolo chapellu (15 months ago)
il castello fu costruito verso il 1275. La sua posizione strategica ha fatto sì che il castello restasse sempre nelle mani del conte di Savoia. Il castello consta di un vasto recinto con fortificazioni ed una torre di vedetta anche all’esterno. Il castello è accessibile a piedi, in un quarto d’ora, dalla stradina che parte dal ponte sulla Dora Baltea nel centro abitato di Villeneuve. Bel panorama!

Lukasz Sobkow (17 months ago)
this is a unique historical place I recommend if someone likes to see and go down a bit in the history of Italy

Valter Perrier (2 years ago)
Spettacolo medievale... Passeggiata facile e suggestiva

Ilario Bonomi (2 years ago)
Doveva essere certamente un luogo splendido, viste le dimensioni dei suoi ruderi e la posizione in cui sorgeva. Attualmente rimane solo la piccola cappella (consolidata ma oggetto di innumerevoli quanto spregevoli atti di vandalismo) e la torre del mastio, che non si può visitare. La salita è impegnativa, in quanto il sentiero non è agevole (fondo piuttosto scivoloso) ed è decisamente ripido, ma ripaga con un eccellente panorama.

Joshua DeBoe (2 years ago)
Well worth the hike

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Cochem Castle

The original Cochem Castle, perched prominently on a hill above the Moselle River, served to collect tolls from passing ships. Modern research dates its origins to around 1100. Before its destruction by the French in 1689, the castle had a long and fascinating history. It changed hands numerous times and, like most castles, also changed its form over the centuries.

In 1151 King Konrad III ended a dispute over who should inherit Cochem Castle by laying siege to it and taking possession of it himself. That same year it became an official Imperial Castle (Reichsburg) subject to imperial authority. In 1282 it was Habsburg King Rudolf’s turn, when he conquered the Reichsburg Cochem and took it over. But just 12 years later, in 1294, the newest owner, King Adolf of Nassau pawned the castle, the town of Cochem and the surrounding region in order to finance his coronation. Adolf’s successor, Albrecht I, was unable to redeem the pledge and was forced to grant the castle to the archbishop in nearby Trier and the Electorate of Trier, which then administered the Reichsburg continuously, except for a brief interruption when Trier’s Archbishop Balduin of Luxembourg had to pawn the castle to a countess. But he got it back a year later.

The Electorate of Trier and its nobility became wealthy and powerful in large part due to the income from Cochem Castle and the rights to shipping tolls on the Moselle. Not until 1419 did the castle and its tolls come under the administration of civil bailiffs (Amtsmänner). While under the control of the bishops and electors in Trier from the 14th to the 16th century, the castle was expanded several times.

In 1688 the French invaded the Rhine and Moselle regions of the Palatinate, which included Cochem and its castle. French troops conquered the Reichsburg and then laid waste not only to the castle but also to Cochem and most of the other surrounding towns in a scorched-earth campaign. Between that time and the Congress of Vienna, the Palatinate and Cochem went back and forth between France and Prussia. In 1815 the western Palatinate and Cochem finally became part of Prussia once and for all.

Louis Jacques Ravené (1823-1879) did not live to see the completion of his renovated castle, but it was completed by his son Louis Auguste Ravené (1866-1944). Louis Auguste was only two years old when construction work at the old ruins above Cochem began in 1868, but most of the new castle took shape from 1874 to 1877, based on designs by Berlin architects. After the death of his father in 1879, Louis Auguste supervised the final stages of construction, mostly involving work on the castle’s interior. The castle was finally completed in 1890. Louis Auguste, like his father, a lover of art, filled the castle with an extensive art collection, most of which was lost during the Second World War.

In 1942, during the Nazi years, Ravené was forced to sell the family castle to the Prussian Ministry of Justice, which turned it into a law school run by the Nazi government. Following the end of the war, the castle became the property of the new state of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate). In 1978 the city of Cochem bought the castle for 664,000 marks.

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