Tour de Châtelard (Castello di Châtelard)

On the alluvial cone of La Salle, in the hamlet of Château, the near-intact circular keep of Châtelard Castle rises above medieval walls. Built in the first half of the thirteenth century for the bishop Rodolfo Grossi, the circular tower survived the destruction of much of the castle in 1793.

Why it matters

Châtelard belongs to the generation of round-tower fortresses tied to Count Peter II of Savoy's mid-thirteenth-century reorganisation of the region, a type otherwise rare in Valle d'Aosta, where square keeps dominate. Its builder, Rodolfo Grossi, was bishop of Aosta from 1243 and archbishop of Tarentaise from 1246, and one of Peter's closest counsellors — a man whose family took the name Grossi du Châtelard from this very seat. The tower is a prominent reminder of the Mont Blanc area's medieval history.

What to notice

The donjon is a cylinder roughly eighteen metres tall, its crowned masonry still near complete while the residential wings around it lie in shattered arcs. Double curtain walls mark the compact fortress that dominated the La Salle cone. The castle occupies a promontory-like spur of stable alluvium above the valley road, among neighbouring strongholds: the casaforte Pascal, casaforte Aragon and maison Gerbollier stand within the same hamlet fabric, making Château de La Salle a rare micro-cluster of fortified architecture. The smoother tower drum contrasts with the rougher remains of the walls, marking the extent of the destruction in 1793.

Context and history

The historian Jean-Baptiste de Tillier attributed the castle's construction to Rodolfo Grossi, and a document of 1248 provides its first written record, placing the build firmly in the 1230s–1240s window. Grossi's career — bishop of Aosta, then archbishop of Tarentaise, adviser to Peter II of Savoy — explains the tower's fashionable round plan, echoing the count's fortified works. The Grossi du Châtelard family held the castle for generations. In 1793, French revolutionary troops advancing into the Aosta Valley destroyed much of the complex, and the ruin passed in 1798 to the Léaval family, who kept it until 1931.