Castello di Monteventano, Castle in Piozzano, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Castello di Monteventano is a fortified complex on the summit of Monte Ventano at 420 m in the upper Luretta valley. Surviving medieval parts include stretches of the outer wall, an arched entrance with traces of the drawbridge recesses, a rectangular turret against the residential block, and a roughly 30 m keep on the south side built of squared stone with brick-framed openings. The parish church of the Nativity of Mary incorporates a 12th-century Romanesque apse with hanging arches, later adapted as a baptistery.

The castle's origins date to around the year 1000. Its first certain mention is its destruction by Frederick Barbarossa in 1164 and removal from the imperial fief register. Rebuilt, it was besieged in 1268 by Ghibelline troops under Ubertino Landi, who set it on fire and executed the garrison. In 1408 Duke Giovanni Maria Visconti granted the Monteventano fief to the Arcelli brothers Martino, Bartolomeo and Antonio.

The castle church, dedicated to the Nativity of Mary, was elevated to parish status in the early 16th century; the first document naming it as dependent on the pieve of Pomaro dates from 1555–1556. After the 16th century the building was enlarged with a presbytery and a bell tower raised on the remains of the north tower, and its orientation was rotated 90 degrees.

Plan your visit during milder months as winter weather can make mountain roads more challenging and less predictable. Good hiking shoes are recommended since the approach involves uphill walking and uneven surfaces throughout the site.

The castle has belonged since the 1990s to the German painter Bernd Zimmer, a founder of the Neue Wilde movement, and was restored in that decade after centuries of decay of its medieval remains. The residential conversion followed those works, so the fortified complex is a private home rather than a museum.