Rocca dei Rossi (Italy)

The first castle to defend the territory where today stands the town of Roccabianca was erected in the twelfth century, but not in its current position, but near the present hamlet of Fossa; the town then called Rezinoldo or Arzenoldo, belonged in 1189 to Oberto Pallavicino, who was invested with the fief by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The area, however, was disputed even by the Rossi family, Lords of San Secondo, which in 1413 were awarded the Rezinoldo castle by Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg. Three years later Antonio Pallavicino retook the fortress and had it completely destroyed.
To resolve the decade-long feud between the Reds and the Pallavicino, in 1449 the Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza officially awarded him the feud first. The following year, Pier Maria Rossi, Count of San Secondo, started the construction work of the new imposing fortress, which ended around 1465; since then the castle was said to Roccabianca, probably in honor of Bianca Pellegrini, commander of the lover, who was given it in 1467, although some historians believe that the name derived from the color of the plaster that covered even then the facades.
Around 1480 the climate in favor of Pier Maria Rossi radically changed, especially after the seizure of power in the duchy of Milan by Ludovico il Moro, who allied himself with Pallavicino and the Sanvitale; in view of the clashes, the Earl strengthened all its many castles, but the intervention was not enough; in 1482 during the so-called war of Rossi also Roccabianca fortress was attacked and surrendered without suffering major damage on July 25 of that year; Ludovico il Moro gave later confiscated the estate of the Marquis Gian Francesco Pallavicino.
Recent renovations have revealed valuable decorations to fresh coats of arms in the portico in front of the famous Griselda room with the modern reconstruction of the series of paintings inspired by the hundredth novella of Boccaccio.
The castle houses the Distillery Museum.