The Breno castle rises on a hill overlooking the town: the building was erected in the 12th century, then turned into a military stronghold at the time of the Venetian Republic (1400-1500) and finally, after being abandoned in 1598, it was reused as a stone quarry.
The castle however rises on a much more ancient site: probably the place where in the 10th-9th century BCE a prehistoric community settled.
You can reach the castle with a short walk (about 15 minutes) from the centre of Breno: the perimeter is closed by a battlemented boundary wall and by two towers. Inside you can admire the remains of the St. Michele church, of Longobard origin, then enlarged in the Romanesque period. The other buildings, the only remains of which are mostly the outside walls and the cellars with barrel vaults, were added during the Venetian reign.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.