Bastia San Michele Archeopark

The Bastia San Michele Archeopark is located on the homonymous mountain of San Michele, a height of 336 meters overlooking the town of Cavaion Veronese

Bastia San Michele Archeopark, thanks to its position it constituted an observation point on the Adige valley and on the passage from Verona to the Brenner. Once a prehistoric settlement, it was used by the Romans, in the ninth century the Lombards built a church dedicated to San Michele; towards the end of the XI and beginning of the XII century it became a real fortress with walls that surrounded its summit. In the second half of the fourteenth century the church lost importance, then a convent of olivetan monks was flanked, but in 1399 the troops of Jacopo dal Verme occupied the fortification damaging it; only with the Serenissima the place was restored to be however again ruined by the troops of the Confederates of the League of Cambrai in 1509 that razed the fortification to the ground and damaged the church. Subsequently, arranged, it is guarded by a hermit until it passed under the jurisdiction of the new parish; in 1710 it was again destroyed by French soldiers, rebuilt and again demolished in the nineteenth century to use the pieces as building material for the new parish. The area of over five thousand square meters is articulated on various levels with openings and delimited by remains of fortification walls, the main ones are on the top, military destination and the underlying one of religious destination; the area is currently open and also included in the cycle path coming from Verona.