- Art & Culture
Castle of the Unnamed
Stronghold in the Lecco area with a Splendid view of Lake Garlate
The tour dedicated to the Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) also passes through Vercurago, a small municipality in the province of Lecco between Mount Mudarga and Lake Garlate.
Although, like its owner, the Castle of the Unnamed is never explicitly mentioned in the novel, its identification is in fact made possible by the juxtaposition of the figure of the terrible Unnamed with Bernardino Visconti, a real-life character who seems to have inspired Manzoni.
Owned by the Visconti family in the 16th century, the Fortress of Somasca therefore coincides for scholars with the Castle of the Unnamed where Lucia was imprisoned: a now dilapidated building located below the end of the eastern branch of Lake Como at an altitude of over 400 metres.
An intriguing and mysterious place, the castle retains some elements of the original structure, such as the perimeter walls, the staircase carved into the rock and some portions of the ramparts and towers. To properly end our Manzonian journey, the splendid view from the top of the fortress opens generously onto Lake Garlate.
