“Madonna del Castello” sanctuary is a historical complex near the Brembo river, in the town of Almenno San Salvatore. Its four main buildings come from different ages, representing a link between peoples, cultures and religions.
The most ancient of them is a Roman domus, whose construction was probably wanted by the Emperor Augustus himself. It’s also said this was an actual imperial residence. Almenno is situated in a strategic point, so it was probably treasured by the Romans as one of their most important centres.
After the fall of Rome, barbarians established in Almenno and the villa became their sacred palace.
When around the 8th century Longobards took over this plain, king Astholfo settled in this house with his court. There also was an adjacent Christian chapel of which you can see an old entrance looking down from the path on the left of the church. It’s believed the crypt we can visit nowadays has in its structure some of the walls that once constituted this chapel. Almenno also had a curtis regia, which basically was a revenue that cashed the incomes in for the prince or, in this case, for king Astholfo and, later on, his descendants. As of today, we can’t precisely locate where the headquarters of this institution were. We only know it usually was separated from the centre of the village. The important thing is to remember that cutis regia is not the royal court (curia regis in latin).
I hope you will have a good time exploring our territory and its treasure. Thank you for watching!
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