Today we drove to visit Trento, which is a very ancient town somewhat south of Molveno. My plan of sitting on the other side of the bus did not work, as I was still on the sunny side - and it was very hot and sunny all day. We have to wear masks in the bus, so it was very hot and uncomfortable.
Trento was originally a Celtic settlement inhabited by Rhaetian tribes, and was conquered in the first century AD by the Romans and called Tridentum. It was an important stop on the Roman road from Verona to Innsbruck. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was conquered by various peoples, and eventually became part of the Holy Roman Empire, and by the 14th century, it was part of Austria. It was ruled over by prince-bishops, and in the 16th century was the site of the Council of Trent, which, in response to Martin Luther, aimed to condemn the principals and doctrines of Protestantism and clarify the doctrines of the Catholic Church. I learned about this in history, though I doubt anybody still does. I had no idea that ‘Trent’ was in fact Trento in Italy though.
The prince-bishops governed the province of Trento until the Napoleonic era, after which that part of Italy was sometimes part of Italy and sometimes part of the Hapsburg empire. After World War 1, the area was annexed to Italy.
Our bus dropped us beside the Piazza Dante, and we walked through the town to begin our visit in the main square, housing the cathedral and the Neptune fountain. The fountain dates from 1769, and may be dedicated to Neptune because the Roman name of the city, Tridentum, may be associated with Neptune's trident.
You can see it’s somewhat baroque in style. I failed to photograph it without people - the square is quite busy and full of groups of tourists. That’s the cathedral behind the fountain, where we went next.
The original cathedral was built between the 9th and 10th century on the site of a 4th century basilica, and is very plain and austere and much more to my taste than the one we saw yesterday.
This is the rose window over the main entrance. The fresco looks old but I couldn’t find any information about it, possibly because the cathedral is currently undergoing restoration. There seemed to be little other artwork (which might also be because of the restoration) but I certainly admired the plain and simple architecture. The square itself is full of beautiful buildings, and one of them on the corner is decorated with frescos, though they are somewhat faded now.
Not far from the cathedral square we found the underground remains of the original Roman city of Tridentum. These extensive remains were discovered during restoration and extension of the nearby theatre, which started in 1990.
The site apparently demonstrates a historical sequence from the foundation of the town, through the Roman period, into the medieval period through to a Renaissance palace and 19th and 20th century buildings. But we concentrated on the Roman remains.
This is Paul walking on the remains of an ancient Roman pavement. I was amazed we were allowed to walk on it, in fact I had to be invited to do so by the room guardian, I would have thought being walked on by visitors would damage it. But I suppose the museum doesn’t get that many visitors, there were only 2 other people there during the hour or so we were inside and the museum staff far outnumbered the visitors.
We were able to admire the remains of drains, Roman water pipes and the hypocaust under one of the houses. And there were a couple of mosaics, but they were rather fragmentary. There some beautiful ceramics, some containing the remains of food, particularly oyster shells and grains. And, because there had been a glassworks, there was some Roman glass.
After this, we walked through the town. The historic centre is full of beautiful old buildings. I could easily post several, but most are in this renaissance style.
There are many buildings of this style in the city centre and the only reason I didn’t photograph more was that my back was bad again and I didn’t want to stop. I did photograph one with a very high relief of an Annunciation in the side of it, a thing I have never seen before on a building, but it isn’t a very good photo.
We walked on to the castle, the Castello del Buonconsiglio, which was started during the 13th century. We didn’t visit the tower, which was of that earliest date, but we did visit the Castelvecchio, the medieval castle daring from the 13th - 15th centuries, as well as the 16th century renaissance palace.
The older parts of the castle housed the museum, with finds dating back to prehistoric times, with stone axes and arrowheads. Other rooms had later finds from the Rhaetian tribes, which were surprisingly sophisticated. I liked these two jugs so much I would have been happy to take them home!
We passed on through history, with some more Roman glass and then medieval relics. These were mostly religious, frescos, altarpieces and reliquaries. Then we passed into the renaissance period, when the castle became a renaissance palace. There was a wonderful loggia with a superb view over the city.
This led into the Bishops Hall, which has a painted frieze with a succession of portraits of the prince bishops as well as those of the emperors.
It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t recognise a single one! I included this photo partly because of the amazing ceiling. And partly because we liked the carpet - that’s another thing to wrap up and take home!
I couldn’t photograph the friezes and ceilings of the 3 really spectacular rooms because there was an exhibition of Venetian 18th century paintings in them. The paintings were all hung on very high stands which obscured the ceilings and the friezes, which was a pity. My back was so bad I had little time for the Venetian paintings - I don’t like the baroque anyway. Not that the friezes would have necessarily been any better, but it would have been nice to see the rooms as they were intended to be seen.
The most spectacular ceiling we saw was in the loggia on the way out.
It was very crowded all the time, so impossible to get a photo without hoards of people.
We paid a swift visit to the Museum cafeteria so I could get some water, as it was very hot indeed and we had failed to bring any, stupidly. Then we had to walk back through the town back to Piazza Dante to meet our bus. We were early so took the opportunity to have a quick coffee. I can’t think why I failed to photograph Dante’s statue, because it is huge and right in the middle. My only excuse is my bad back and the fact that I was desperate to sit down.
Once in the bus, we set off for Levico, where there is a really charming lake, which is very well used by the people of the town.
It was good to relax beside the lake, and after we had wandered for a while, we lay on the grass in the shade and ate ice cream. Then it was back in the bus to the hotel. Tomorrow it’s an even earlier start, so I must not sit up too late writing this blog.
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