Della Monica Castle

Designed and built between 1889 and 1917, the personal residence of Teramo artist Gennaro Della Monica, an architect, sculptor and painter who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, is located on the small hill of San Venanzio, not far from Piazza Garibaldi and at the confluence of important road junctions leading to the city. From the castle there is a splendid view of the entire town, which extends to the foot of the village built in close visual continuity with the historic centre.

The Della Monica Castle, opened to the public for the first time on 9 July 2022, is an architectural unicum in the entire national panorama.

The building, following the turn-of-the-century fashion of the neo-Gothic style, presents a return to medieval taste.

The complex consists of two secondary buildings that, together with the main body, form a veritable medieval-inspired hamlet comprising a service annexe and terraced gardens, and is located on the ruins of the ancient church of San Venanzio, from which building materials and decorative elements have been re-used. The interior of the castle is rich in murals depicting landscapes and more: works by the hand of the artist who painted every scene down to the last detail.

After lengthy and demanding restoration work, the Della Monica Castle has returned to the national spotlight with an exhibition, La camera delle meraviglie (The Chamber of Marvels), born out of the desire to deepen our knowledge of a cultural phenomenon that, at the end of the 19th century, led various Italian artists and collectors to evoke the myth of the Middle Ages, also with a view to enhancing artistic craftsmanship.

By virtue of the need to include the Della Monica Castle in a cultural circuit that would express its originality and at the same time its tourism potential, a collaborative relationship was established with the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, which granted the loan of arms, armour, precious furnishings valuable pastille and ivory artefacts that, in the rooms decorated by Gennaro Della Monica with scenes inspired by medieval life, find their ideal contextualisation, giving life to a chamber of wonders inspired by the refined rooms, full of rare and expensive objects that characterised the stately homes of the past.