Le case torri di Lovere

Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Lovere walled itself in, and the noble families built upwards: square stone towers that were at once home, fortress and advertisement. Several survive in Lovere's borgo, including the Alghisi keep, Torre Socha and Torre del Porto.

Why it matters

The case torri are the structural memory of medieval Lovere. The official portal describes them as fortified dwellings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, built within the walled town around the main square and castle. They survive in the living borgo: one supports part of a church, one became the town's bell tower, and another is incorporated into a modern underpass.

What to notice

The Torre Alghisi is a quadrangular keep built from squared limestone blocks, with rusticated faces, a vaulted ground-floor room and ogival windows framed in brick during a fourteenth-century remodelling. Torre Socha, sometimes called Zucca, is twelfth-century work in blocks of ceppo stone from Castro. In 1462 it was reduced and incorporated into the apse of San Giorgio, with its ground floor divided into two warehouses. Torre del Porto's masonry survives within a modern underpass. Other medieval traces include a limestone tower-house absorbed into later buildings and two medieval portals in the old town.

Context and history

The portal's account places the towers inside a single building programme: between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Lovere was fortified with a wall circuit enclosing the castle, the case torri that rose around the main square and the town itself. The leading family was the Celeri, nobles descended from the Ghibelline Federici of Val Camonica, who held the Castel Vecchio with its three towers, one of which, the Torre Civica on the main square, still carries a frescoed Lion of Saint Mark dated 1442, the mark of Venetian rule. It became the municipal bell tower after a cloudburst in 1900. The regional catalogue of Lombardia Beni Culturali records the Casatorre degli Alghisi as a fortified residence of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, five storeys high in local stone and still used for dwelling and commerce, confirming their dual role as homes and monuments.