Castle of Desenzano

The castle of Desenzano originated in the early Middle Ages on a previous Roman fortification, its function was since then mainly sheltered for the inhabitants of the village, inside there are still some houses as at that time.

Castle of Desenzano was donated by Charlemagne to the Benedictine monastery of San Zeno in Verona, and at that time its walls easily descended to the lake, including the small port; the centuries pass, the properties of the monasteries dissolve and, in the sec. XI appears as owner and counts a Ugone of the family of the counts of Sabbioneta whose wife Matilde would have made various donations of land in the municipality to the monastery of S.Tommaso in Acquanegra; very easily the same monastery then granted it to the population of Desenzano with the duty to preserve it. In 1472 the castle was enlarged to accommodate a garrison, so much so that in the sixteenth century it included more than 120 houses and the churches of S. Giovanni and S. Ambrogio, later it was used as a barracks in 1882, but its function did not change. The plan is a very irregular rectangle, there are the bases of large circular towers with four corners and one in the middle of the eastern curtain. The main entrance opens on the north side in a kind of ravelin resting on the main keep.Here, above a ditch, in the absence of water, there was the drawbridge of which there are the loopholes for the chains. The tower that rises immediately after a square plan is powerful and massive, without openings in the wall of exposed stone, not very high and ends with large single-light windows paired on each side, opened in recent times, then the crown of blackbirds added later . Inside, everything has been remodeled since in 1880 a barrack was built with neo-Gothic windows, as well as the church of S. Ambrogio, built in 1509 but later transformed into a dwelling. In 1969 it became the property of the municipality that partially restored it.

Historical sources : Fausto Lechi