Castello della Pietra di Bismantova

On the top of Bismantova there was an ancient castle, now ruined.

The history of Bismantova castle (placed on the homonymic Pietra, in Castelnovo ne’ Monti town in Reggio Emilia province) started in V century b.C. and went on in the medieval centuries, until the modern age. Historical sources attest the presence of a castrum on the Pietra from the late VI until XVII century. In particular it played a leading strategic role between the XII and XIII century, period in which, in the chronicle sources, it appears often as a stronghold home to clashes. But not only. The castle represents one of the first example of Medieval Archaeology, being investigated in 1865 by Gaetano Chierici, one of the precursors of modern archaeology. Unfortunately this excavation has never been published completely. However remote nearly a century and half this common thread has never broken and has been taken up by Bologna University that has made a new archaeological excavation campaign in 2012, giving a new contextualization to the castle. Great importance has been given to the long history of the castle and to vascular artifacts found by Chierici, because they are still unpublished. The publication of these two pots is important to recover primary data for archaeological research in Apennine area in Reggio Emilia district.