Muralto

En un regard

Le château en bref

Muralto Castle, a short walk from Locarno railway station, was the seat of the lords of Muralto, a branch of the capitanei of Locarno. Around 1190, Beltramo and Gaffo de Muralto received a castle in fief from the Bishop of Como, from which the family probably took its name. This first castle was destroyed and then replaced around 1380 by a new building, which the family occupied until the mid-sixteenth century. In 1555, members who had embraced the Reformation were forced into exile in Zurich and Bern, where they became known as the "von Muralt". The late-medieval complex was laid out around a courtyard bordered by arcades, with a west wing (guardroom, chamber, vaulted kitchen) and an east wing (seigneurial house). Only two portals survive – the eastern one, in dressed stone, bears a keystone with the family arms – together with a few arcades and sections of wall, incorporated into modern buildings and private properties; only the exterior can be seen. The site of the original castle remains disputed, and the tradition that attributes its foundation to the Lombard king Desiderius rests on no evidence.