Castles & ruins 42: The Visconti Castle of Locarno, CH
What we see today is only about 20% of the mighty castle known from around the 12th century: the outer walls, the inner castle, the massive ditches, the residential quarters, and the entire enclosed military port basin once covered an estimated area of 15,000 m² — all now gone. You can see the reconstruction done by Stelex Software: it is not merely game fantasy, but a reconstruction based on historical sources and archaeological research (the last large-scale excavation done in 2015).
There is as well exact Lego model done by enthusiast:
The first written mention of the castle comes from a document dated 1164, in which Emperor Frederick Barbarossa granted Locarno the right to hold a market.
At the time, the town alternately supported and fought the emperors while remaining an independent trading city, until, in the 14th century, it came under the rule of Milan’s Visconti family — notorious for their cruelty. (So infamous were the Visconti that T. Harris even made Hannibal Lecter a direct descendant of the family in his novels.)
Legends about Visconti brutality form a large part of the myths surrounding the castle: stories of wailing prisoners’ ghosts, tortured souls trapped within the walls, and pale Visconti tyrants still wandering through the corridors, spreading horror among visitors. After Ticino became a Swiss canton, (incl. the town of Locarno), the castle was largely demolished (1532). Finally, the town of Locarno purchased the remaining ruins (1921), reconstructed and opened it as a museum.
Unfortunately, it is currently impossible to access the oldest and most attractive part of the castle, including the tower and the Rivellino. Reconstruction is still ongoing, and the final opening is planned for 2030. Legend says, however, that the medieval section remains closed because of the horrors of the past: the bloodstains of tortured prisoners are impossible to clean, and their curses are still audible within the stone walls.
Tormented ghosts are not the castle’s only secret. There is strong evidence suggesting that the fortifications may have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. The strongest indication is the Rivellino, whose structure corresponds exactly with Leonardo’s sketches from the Codex Atlanticus. Moreover, Leonardo was in fact hired by the Visconti to fortify their castles and was in Ticino.
Locarno’s Rivellino contains many of the characteristic features of Leonardo’s military designs: a pentagonal shape, sloped walls intended to withstand artillery fire, and even “smoke eaters” — suction hoods and ventilation chimneys allowing soldiers to fire firearms continuously from inside closed tower room without dying from smoke inhalation.
A recommendation by Leonardo also survives regarding the Visconti fortifications in Ticino: he advised using pebbles and rounded stones from the Ticino river because of their shape. The idea was that such stones would hold together even after direct artillery impacts, making the walls more flexible and more resistant to cracking than rigid square bricks.
Only a few surviving fortifications are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and most contain only one or two elements of his military concepts while Locarno’s Rivellino has them all.
Comments
Post a Comment