Bonoris Castle and the dream of the Middle Ages

In 1890 the young banker Gaetano Bonoris (1861-1923), having received the title of nobility from King Umberto I of Savoy, purchased the remains of the ancient Fortress of Montichiari, which dominates the town from the hill of San Pancrazio. The intention is to rebuild it to make it his own home and recreate a personal idea of the Middle Ages translated into a fairy-tale and imposing architecture, capable of making the romantic and neo-feudal dream of the new "Count of Montichiari" evident to all. The rebuilding of the Castle, in the neo-Gothic style, was first entrusted to Antonio Tagliaferri and then to Carlo Melchiotti, adopting as an ideal prototype the Medieval Village and Fortress of Turin, built in 1884 for the Universal Exposition, and reproducing in their entirety the most famous examples of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Piedmontese and Valdostan architecture, such as the castles of Fenis or Issogne. The tour will take place on the ground floor and main floor of Bonoris Castle after which, passing through the secret garden, we will climb the watchtower normally closed to the public.