Casa dei Turchi

Above the Leno stream near the ponte Forbato, a house is distinguished by pierced wooden verandas resembling mashrabiya screens. The Casa dei Turchi condenses the silk age of Rovereto into one distinctive facade.

Why it matters

The historic centre of Rovereto is built of stone and arcades; this one building breaks the pattern with latticed timber screens that the city tourism portal identifies with the mashrabiya of Arab architecture, the projecting windows that let occupants watch the street unseen. The name preserves the memory of the Turkish presence tied to the silk economy that enriched the city from the sixteenth century onward, though local tradition offers other readings of how it arose. The facade combines projecting wooden screens with the stone and arcades of Rovereto's historic centre.

What to notice

The upper floors project over the water on wooden verandas with louvered, perforated infill, described in local reporting as the only example of pierced wooden construction in Trentino; the balconies already appear in a painting of 1620. The house stands beside the ponte Forbato, described by the tourism portal as the city's oldest bridge; the sound of the Leno falling beneath it contributes to the setting. Across the stream, the walls of the castle rise directly opposite, so the frame is medieval stone around Ottoman-flavoured timber.

Context and history

Documents and tradition give two overlapping explanations for the name. The city's tourism portal ties the building to the silk trade and to commerce between East and West from the Cinquecento onward. Local newspapers report a more prosaic reading, that Turkish workers and artisans hosted in the city gave the house its name, and record that it was once known as Casa Mona after its owners; a legend even places the harem of a Turkish silk merchant here, which the same reporting treats as legend. In its present form the building is judged to date to the seventeenth century. After years of decay, Gianni Jacucci bought and restored the house with architect Riccardo Falqui Massidda: the wooden screens were dismantled, numbered, restored and rebuilt, and workers found cellars and a buried stretch of the Pajari canal.