Este Castle as early as 1483 appeared a sad and uninhabitable ruin after more than a century of neglect. The origins of the Atestino fortification are lost in legend.
Conventionally, the date of the foundation of the castle at the behest of Alberto Azzo d’Este is set at 1056 although a castrum and villa located further east than the ancient Roman settlement are mentioned as early as 1115.
In 1213 the Commune of Padua besieged and partially destroyed it. At two successive times prior to the Ezzelino siege of 1249, and again during the Scaliger Wars, the structure that had been formed between the 12th and 13th centuries to include the inner enclosure, the chapel dedicated to St. Mary and the dongione , was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt.
Finally, Ubertino da Carrara, lord of Padua, had the work of defending the village of Este built, and in 1339 continued with the renovation of the castle into its present form.
Beginning in 1570, having acquired the castle area, the Mocenigo family began construction of the large palace. The exterior facade runs along almost the entire south side of the walls and is organized in two symmetrical L-shaped bodies connected by a monumental portal that gives access to the large inner courtyard.
Palazzo Mocenigo stands with its extraordinary bulk as a civic mediation between the city and its more direct ancestry, with its axis of symmetry along the perspective conjunction between the Old Gate of the village and the keep of the castle.
Between 1886 and 1915 the area inside the castle walls was the subject of no less than seven excavation campaigns, directed first by Alessandro Prosdocimi and then by Alfonso Alfonsi. The purpose of these excavations was to prove the actual existence of the remains of the castrum and the ancient residence of the Este family, feudal lords of Este, which had grown up from the 10th century and was destroyed in the 13th century. The finds were left in view and equipped for visiting, but were later partly reburied and abandoned to decay until they ended up, in very recent times, completely forgotten under the garbage in the municipal public garden or under piles of road construction material.
A resumption of research took place from 1990 until 1996 with Edi Pezzetta and Angela Ruta Serafini and with the start of the expansion of the Archaeological Museum, housed in the surviving wing of Palazzo Mocenigo.
There are currently two medieval archaeological areas in the Castle area equipped for visiting: one in the basement of the museum (by permission) and one at the top of the hill where the core of the first Este castle was located.
In conclusion, it can be said that the salient phases of the castle’s evolution are with certainty those dated between the 11th and 13th centuries. The first hypotheses about the development of settlements on this vast site can also be made.
Stage I: junction of Roman roads, bridge over branch of ancient Adige riverbed; castellum with church on hilltop perhaps from late 5th century.
Phase II: From the end of the 10th century the castrum of the Marquises of Este is formed in the early medieval castle and on the top of the hill, then extended in a larger enclosure with other residential and service buildings to the slopes of the hill. In contact with this core the urban settlement expands to form a west-southeast arc. Everything is heavily attacked in the siege of 1213.
Phase III: Military reorganization of the castle on the summit of the hill, demolition of the small church and setting of a marquis palace on the southwest slopes, served by an aqueduct. A defensive trench is dug from the bridge over the Sirone to the canal bordering the Borgo della Torre (later S. Gerolamo) to the north, and the land is brought back inland. The route of the Padua road, which at the time was the main access for enemy attacks, is cut off and moved outside the moat. A small detached fort is built at the point where the new route passes over the ditch. This set-up is attacked again in the sieges of 1249 and 1293 (Padovani vs. Estensi) and in 1317 (Scaligeri vs. Padovani) only to be totally destroyed later.
Phase IV: The entire Estense demanio passed to the Carraresi, and the new castle was built in 1337, incorporating the whole of the old area including the Padua street, in whose direction the “Soccorso” gate was built. The two boroughs of Santo Stefano and the Tower remain non-communicating. Under the Venetians the castle is abandoned and some agricultural use is made of it.
Phase V: In 1480 the castle was demilitarized and formerly state-owned land was assigned and sold to Venetian patrician families who built villas there. The moats to the city and northeast were closed and a large palace-villa of the Mocenigo family was built in the castle, with a chapel perhaps in the east wing. In the early 18th century the park is monumentalized. In 1785 it burned and the east wing of the palace was demolished, which was later partly abandoned.
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