Le Murasse

Le Murasse is Verrès in work clothes: a fortified farmstead raised in 1512 by prevost Carlo di Challant as a dependency of the provostship of Saint-Gilles, its plaque recording that the complex rose in three months at the prevost's expense. Crenellated walls and a dovecote tower survive around a building now housing the local mountain community and its library.

Why it matters

Great feudal families in the Aosta Valley did not only build castles; they built farms, and Le Murasse is one of the rare survivors that still shows how the Challant projected power into everyday agriculture. Its dovecote tower was never defensive ornament alone — the right to keep pigeons was a seigneurial privilege, and the source parallels it with the dovecote that Giorgio di Challant built near the castle of Issogne. The complex also marks the 1512 peak of Challant patronage in Verrès, the same year that produced the bell tower of Saint-Gilles. Its twentieth-century rebirth as the seat of the Unité des Communes valdôtaines Évançon and the district library gives it a second life that most rural ruins of the region never found.

What to notice

The complex is ringed on one side by a crenellated curtain wall, and the tower rises above it with a crown of merlons, which the secondary literature describes as swallow-tailed. The Latin plaque on the tower facade is the building's own voice, recording that prevost Carlo di Challant had "this construction, founded at his own expense" completed in three months in 1512. Along one flank runs the long, low stable with its lowered barrel vault, the element that defines the building as a working cascina rather than a residence. The dovecote tower deserves comparison-minded attention — the sources note its kinship with Giorgio di Challant's dovecote at Issogne castle, a deliberate echo of status between two Challant properties. The restored farmstead now houses offices and a library.

Context and history

The date is unusually precise for a rural building: 1512, established by the plaque itself and confirmed by both municipal and regional heritage records. In that year Carlo di Challant, prevost of Saint-Gilles and a central figure of Challant Verrès, raised the bell tower of the collegiate church and renewed the medieval convent; Le Murasse was built as the prevostship's farm dependency, in the same single campaign of improvements. After the decline of the provostship and the Challant line, the complex passed through rural uses and gradually decayed. A 1997 agreement among the Comunità Montana dell'Évançon, the Municipality of Verrès and the Regione Valle d'Aosta funded its restoration and conversion, and the restored building now hosts the offices of the Unité des Communes valdôtaines Évançon together with the Biblioteca comprensoriale, the district library. The restoration is why the walls, tower and vaulted stable can still be read today.