The Brunelde fortalice

The Brunelde fortalice, built on pre-Roman remnants (4th-3rd century BC), was mentioned in 1208 in a list of feudal properties of the Counts of Arcano, marshals and gonfaloniers of the patriarch of Aquileia, to whom it still belongs. A house-tower about 6×7 meters large has been documented since the ‘200s (whose ground floor corresponds to the current “old kitchen”). In the following century it was expanded to become a dwelling protected by fences and a wide moat.

The current shape dates back to Giovanni Nicolò d’Arcano, who in the years 1498-1504 and 1512-1518 radically changed the complex, devoting it to rest and hunting. All according to the suggestions of his brother Rizzardo – humanist and diplomatic at the papal curia – who on the ground floor of the west wing wanted to recall the “roman” distribution scheme and chose from Virgilio’s Aeneid the Latin mottos inserted in medallions surrounded by racemes that adorn the entrance hall, with the precise intention of exalting the human mind and spirit.

The great Renaissance works were completed in 1518 with the construction of the small chapel of San Nicolò, which inside still preserves a relic of the “true Cross”, according to the tradition brought by Leonardo III d’Arcano in the 127th from the eighth crusade. Until the fifteenth century the house was commonly called “de Tricano” for the three dogs raised as a coat of arms, combined with silver and red squares, and for this reason the stately home that grew west of the original tower-house was called domus magna Tricanea, distinguishing itself from the agricultural wing to the east, with stables, warehouses and granaries.

The domus magna Tricanea still contains furnishings, portraits and objects of the family; among the interiors we should mention the small study that was used by the poet Gian Mauro d’Arcano (1498 ca -1535), which now hosts part of the historical archive of the family, with original documents and parchments from the eleventh century, the “caminata” (walkway), the sixteenth-century kitchen, the lounge and the bedroom that hosted the famous singer Farinelli in the eighteenth century. And on the top floor is the “Salla magna”, the large state room of the fourteenth-century domus, with a perfectly functioning fortepiano dating back two centuries. The house also features a charming garden, with the remains of the ancient hunting “ragnaia” (small wood with nets for capturing birds).”

INFO:
Casaforte d’Arcano La Brunelde
Via Giovanni Mauro d’Arcano 2 – 33034 Fagagna (UD)
Cell: +39 349 815 0543
E-mail: info@labrunelde.it
Website: www.labrunelde.it
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