Castello degli Orelli

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Castello degli Orelli overlooks Biasca (Ticino) at an altitude of about 400 m, between two waterfalls of the Froda and near the chapel of Santa Petronilla. The Orelli, descended from the capitanei of Locarno, were among the great noble families of Ticino in the early Middle Ages; one of their branches had a castle built here, though its date of construction is not known. It probably received from the chapter of Milan Cathedral, as early as the twelfth century, the seigneurial rights over this strategic site, and exercised them as if they were its own property. In 1292, the inhabitants obtained the right to elect their own Ammann (podestà); the deed was signed at the castle by Heinrich von Orelli. The Orelli dominion ended around the middle of the fourteenth century, when the Visconti of Milan incorporated the region into their territory. Excavations carried out in 1986 revealed earlier structures from the eleventh and thirteenth centuries on the same site. Only a section of wall remains, but the medieval stone bridge over the Froda and the chapel of Santa Petronilla (1632) make the site legible; access is free.