Castle of San Felice del Benaco
Castle of San Felice arose after the landslide of the famous Scovolo castle and Manerba castle by the Bresciani in 1279
Castle of San Felice del Benaco the Lechi writes about it: “After the destruction of the two castles, so absolute that no trace remains of it except perhaps the foundations that could be searched, after a few decades Scovolo’s men, dispersed, created the places of Portese and the castle of S. Felice which was called di Scovolo in memory of the ancient, glorious castle. It appears for the first time in a document of the accounts of caastelbarco that in 1331 came for a very short time investitidella the lordship of these places therein “castrum et terram de Scovolo sive S.Felice”. It is then recalled by Soldon in the year 1438 when Piccinino, who took possession of Manerba and S. Felice, made it the base for his raids in the territory around Brescia; and then also the other Visconti leader Tallinao del Friuli, after having “stolen, burned and destroied” the poor inhabitants, he fought “strong battle”. During the war of Ferrara in 1483 the castle was defended but in the new century, the French fury broke out between us, after the battle of the Ghiaradadda, the Riviera was hit by the cardinal d’Amboise who ordered the destruction of the castles and among these also that of St. Felix: Once the Venetian rule was restored, it was provided for the reconstruction in 1521 “at common expenses” and after that time, except for some raids by German armies in 1528 commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, it no longer suffered attacks and destruction. The time and the carelessness of the peoples to reduce the poor castle in the present state took care of it.
Indeed it should not be a very large complex, because, including the embankments, will have measured about sixty meters per side, being square in plan. Today in the ancient enclosure the camposanto is enclosed continuing the inhabitants to bury their dead where they were buried even in ancient times, that is around the church of S. Felice and S. Naborre, then parochial. Only the traces of the south side and the south-west corner remain of the ancient walls, where you can still see the base of a tower, the embankment in the evening and upstream and, only visible, the tower of the high mountain peak willowy. It ends with a crowning of small piombathies and has towards the base a slit, which would seem a lightning strike. In the vault of the tower there are the tombs of the fallen of the last wars. In the Napoleonic map there is a tower in the middle of the evening, now disappeared: it is also likely that a tower stood in place of the current bell tower as it rises right on today’s entrance, which will also be the ancient entrance of the castle.
Castle of San Felice del Benaco
