Castello di Sterpeto

The Castello di Sterpeto is named for the first time in an act of the year 1056. The origin of the toponym reveals the presence of "staves" but the place had to be certainly laughing and safe. Located on the top of the hill from which dominated the valley, then swampy and unhealthy. This particular conformation made the territory among the most populous of all the Assisano since the low-medieval age.

From the end of the fourteenth century onwards, the castle's history will be intertwined with those of the Fiumi family of Assisi.

Crucial for the history of these walls were the years from 1438 to 1443 that saw the castle in the center, in spite of himself, of the bitter struggle between the partisans of the pope and the Sforza of Milan, who, after paying allegiance to the pontiff, at the end of June 1438 they occupied Assisi. This dominion unleashed the wrath of Niccolò Piccinino, a Perugian commander of fortune, hired by Pope Eugene IV to repossess the lands occupied by the Sforza domain.

They were months of heavy devastation and predations that ended with the occupation of the area by Piccinino who gave the castle of Sterpeto to his Neapolitan salaried: Antonello Della Torre. But the latter enjoyed very little because he was arrested and executed for having secretly treated with Sforza during the fighting. Sterpeto came out battered by this adventure, so much so that the Community of Assisi exempted its inhabitants from duty for some years.

The wall, some documents tell us, is a structure that was later added to a more ancient rural villa; in fact, the walls serve as a link between the pre-existing and support spurs. Outside the built-up area there is the church which, however, is of a much later invoice.

The castle is built in sandstone and river pebbles and has the distinction of having two access doors. One, more ancient, with a round arch surrounded by sandstone blocks, is surmounted by the remains of a small tower and leads into the town, following a U-shaped track and ending in a square. The second door, much larger in size and with an arch outlined by sandstone elements, leads to the large space of the curtis of the stately building with a well in the center.

The interventions of the Renaissance period were concentrated in the oldest part of the elegant area, built around the beautiful colombara tower, as attested, in addition to the architectural style, the coats of arms with the initials CG = Comes Guido, Count Guido Fiumi, invested in the County of Sterpeto from Pius II in 1462 and CA = Comes Alexander, Count Alessandro, son of Guido, who lived in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

In the seventeenth century, to the ancient residential area of ​​the old castellan nucleus, located on the northern side of the castle next to the soaring colombara, are added new residential spaces facing south. A structural change justified by the increase in the number of family members of the accounts. Some traces of walls still visible outside the present castellan perimeter would seem to confirm the existence of a ring external wall that was also to incorporate the area of ​​the parish church and the square in front of it.