Castello di San Gottardo
CASTELLO SAN GOTTARDO MEZZOCORONA
A non-attentive person may miss this carefully camouflaged fortress on the mountainside, but once you've noticed it, and maybe even reached it along an impervious trail, then you'll be absolutely enchanted by the place. Together with Castel Corona (Cunevo) and Busa dei Preeri (Avio), it is a formidable mix between nature and military architecture. In this horizontal ridge on the rock face two parts make the fortress, of which nothing remains today, except for the foundations. One may make out an older triangular ground plan, and a more recent section with a rectangular ground plan, almost a tower, also serving as a hermitage (until the beginning of the 19th century), with the nearby small chapel dedicated to Saint Gotthard. Only a few men were needed to defend it and the narrow space between the walls and the buildings served as a trap for the assailants who had managed to get that far. It was a truly strategic position on the Italian border, towards Mezzolombardo, and on the German one towards Mezzocorona. The castle, in fact, as from the 13th century, was a fief of the powerful Appiano family, then it passed into the hands of the Mezo, whose name was Germanized into Metz (Corona du Mezo, Cronmetz), then to the Wolkensteins. The Firmians, the last owners, abandoned it towards the end of the 16th century, for the underlying and more comfortable Castel Firmian.
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