Aymavilles Castle, Aosta Valley

Aymavilles Castle is a castle located in Aymavilles in Aosta Valley, Italy, dating back to the 13th century.

The castle is quadrangular in shape, with four cylindrical towers with battlements and brackets at the corners, and is perched on a moraine slope. The site of the castle makes it ideally suited for controlling access to both the Cogne valley, which was used for marble mining and the central valley, where the Via delle Gallie developed and connected Mediolanum to Lugdunum. The structure first appears in records around 1287. In that it more closely resembled a fortified house like the castle of Écours in La Salle or the castle of La Mothe in Arvier, it was fundamentally different from today’s forms.

The Counts of Savoy gave the castle to a branch of the Challant family in 1354; this family would later come to be known as the “Challant-Aymavilles.” The dungeon was expanded westward and given an additional floor. A moat, a drawbridge, and an additional boundary wall were built by Aimon of Challant.

The four towers with corbels and battlements, two of which have Guelph motifs while the others have Ghibelline motifs, were added at the beginning of the 15th century at Amedeo di Challant’s request. They are connected by a network of galleries and loggias, are slightly different in size, and feature defensive turrets built into the surrounding walls. The castle’s distinctive exterior design will be characterized by these towers, which were kept in place during later remodeling. Tuff and travertine are the stones that are used in construction.

The castle’s outer fortifications were removed in 1728 at the request of Baron Joseph Felix de Challant (Joseph-Félix de Challant), after which it was transformed into a manor with a park and a sizable fountain as well as remaining largely unchanged ever since. Baroque loggias were further constructed between the towers at Joseph-Félix de Challant’s request.

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