Montebello Castle (Switzerland)

The castle of Montebello is located in Bellinzona. Its previous names were "little castle", "New Castle" and "middle castle" from the fourteenth to 1506, then Castle of Schwyz until 1818 and finally to San Martino Castle. The medieval complex to which it belongs, which includes Castelgrande, Sasso Corbaro and the walls connecting them, since 2000 is part of the UNESCO. Today it houses the Archaeology and History Section of the Municipal Museum of the city's origins.

The construction of the castle, the second oldest of Bellinzona, probably dates back to the thirteenth century when it was built by the Rusca family, who took refuge there during the occupation of Milan, on a rock that dominates the oldest part of the city. The first mention dates back to 1313, however, when it was reported the existence indirectly. At the time, however, there were only the keep of the castle trapezoidal, two courtyards and some houses. In the fourteenth century they were made the Ghibelline battlements, which suffered a further expansion between 1462 and 1490, when new walls were built with round or polygonal towers with the opening facing inward. During the same intervention they were made the lunette, a second moat and a wall walk in which there are some trap doors.
Behind the oldest moat are a parapet and a pentagon-shaped tower that marks the beginning of the walls, which surround the south, north-west and in the part that separates him from the village.
In the seventeenth century to the existing facilities it was added a chapel dedicated to St. Michael, which was renovated in 1934 by Giuseppe Weith. In the twentieth century, moreover, the castle underwent major interventions: the original tower was completed, and between 1902 and 1910 was consolidated by a commission headed by Eugen Probst. The last speaker finally goes back to 1974, when it was built a steel structure suspended to accommodate the Museum.