Castel Nanno

It stands above the apple orchards of Nanno, in the municipality of Ville d'Anaunia: a 16th-century residence enclosed within a square wall with four small turrets at the corners, built around the keep of the medieval castle. The keep is still there, absorbed into the house, even though it partly collapsed in 1873.

The first records date from 1264. In 1274 its lords were Niccolò and Giordano, sons of Ropreto da Denno, who took their name from the castle: da Nanno. In the middle of the 14th century the bishop of Trento took their fiefs away from them for disloyalty and the castle passed for a few decades to the Spaur family; in 1420 it returned to the Nanno. This rivalry also gave rise to a legend: Melisenda di Nanno and Ludovico of Castel Sporo loved each other in secret, and her father, on discovering the forbidden love, is said to have had them walled up alive in the castle.

In the 15th century Riprando da Nanno also received the fief of Castel Madruzzo and took its name: this is how the Madruzzo family began, which would give Trento the prince-bishops Cristoforo and Carlo Emanuele. Between 1520 and 1530 the Madruzzo transformed the castle into the Renaissance residence that can be seen today. In 1610, when the fief belonged to Gaudenzio Madruzzo, a witchcraft trial was held at Nanno which condemned three women to be burned at the stake.

After the Madruzzo line died out with Bishop Carlo Emanuele, in 1661 the castle passed to the prince-bishopric of Trento. At the end of the 19th century it belonged to Carlo de Giuliani, librarian and director of the museum of Trento, who had it restored. Today it is privately owned and can be visited only on certain occasions.