Heritage: Arnad, Hône, Pontboset, Verrès

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An inscription carved in Gothic characters states that Ibleto of Challant began works in 1390. In 1536 Renato of Challant renovated the defence structures, adapting them for modern fire arms. On this occasion, a boundary wall with a battery, buttresses and five-sided attack towers, suitable for use with the canon and springalds cast in the Count of Challant’s fiefdom in Valangin, Switzerland. Further protection was given to the entrance with the addition of an inner gate, a drawbridge and loopholes. New cross windows were created in addition to the existing single-light and mullioned Gothic windows, and new gates with Spanish-inspired Moorish arches. The interiors were enhanced with new furnishings. Renato of Challant died leaving no male heirs in 1565, which is when the castle was taken over by the Savoys. In 1661 Duke Charles Emmanuel II ordered the dismantling of weapons and their transfer to the fortress in Bard, a strategic point in which the defence of Val d’Aosta was concentrated.
The Challant regained possession of the castle in 1696 and kept it until the end of the family line at the start of the 19th century. At that time the castle had been abandoned for almost two centuries: the roof, which was already in partial collapse, was demolished completely to avoid paying duty on the structure, and so the upper floors were exposed to the elements. Like the castles of Issogne and Fénis, this castle was rescued by a group of Piedmont intellectuals with a common love for the Middle Ages.

After going through the outer door which opens in the fortified wall, also accessible on horseback across the drawbridge, you come to the guard’s building opposite the castle entrance. The portal leads onto a hallway with a protective machicolation disguised within the vault. A second door, formerly protected by a portcullis, provides access to the castle courtyard. Surrounding this square space, the body of the building is arranged in a ring on three floors, connected via a monumental stone staircase set on rampant arches. The regular geometrical structure and simplicity of the green and white stone decoration, are consistent with military character of the building and are also evidence of the excellent craftsmanship in Verrès.
On the ground floor, two large symmetrical halls occupy the entire east and west wings of the castle, while the kitchen is located in the south. The east barrel-vaulted hall was probably used as a weaponry. The groin-vaulted weapons room in the west wing is of far greater interest, presenting two monumental fireplaces with moulded jambs. Double masonry and other clues found during recent restoration work, indicate that the building probably underwent several construction phases.
The first-floor rooms, used by the lords of the castle are illuminated by elegant 13th-century mullioned windows, which are larger than those on other floors. The large dining hall is connected to the master kitchen via a serving hatch. The kitchen has three large fireplaces and multiple ribbed vault reconstructed during the time of Renato of Challant, the only original ceiling in the castle. Another feature that is worthy of attention is the extraordinarily large north fireplace that is richly decorated with moulding and small pillars.
On the second floor (not open to visitors) are the servants’ quarters, connected to the machicolation floor via a wooden staircase.

Each year the castle is the prestigious backdrop for the Historic Carnival of Verrès, with the re-enactment of the epic of Countess Caterina of Challant.

Tradition dates the foundation of the monastery to the X century, however the canonicals of St. Egidio are mentioned for the first time in 1050. It was the location of the parish church, which includes buildings dating from the XI and XVIII centuries. The main building, in visible stone, and the adjacent, main bell-tower were build in 1512 by the Provost Charles of Challant.

The current parish church of Sant’Egidio was instead built in 1775 on the site where the previous, Romanesque church lay. Only a simple, little belfry remains today. In 1775 Count Francesco Ottavio of Challant allowed the structures of the pre-existing church to be merged with the Chapel of Saints George and Maurice, built in 1407 by the knight Ibleto of Challant as his family’s burial chapel. The structures in this chapel are still easily identified today, from outside due to the magnificent mullioned window in worked stone that stands out on the wall facing towards the village and inside due to its gothic, ribbed vaults which were saved from eighteenth-century intervention.

On May 25, 1800, the convent of Verrès hosted Napoleon for the night as he and his troops descended from the Gran San Bernardo and crossed the Aosta Valley, starting his second Italian campaign.

Since December 2015, pilgrims who walk the Via Francigena can find accommodation in the guesthouse called “La Casa del Pellegrino”.

The Echallod Bridge is a stone pedestrian bridge, one of the most picturesque in the Aosta Valley region.

Restored several times over the centuries, it connects the hamlets of upper and lower Echallod to the other villages of the municipality of Arnad, located on the left bank of the Dora Baltea river.

The symmetrical humpback structure rests on three arches supported by sturdy buttresses. On the right shoulder there is a small chapel to protect travellers.
You cross this bridge when you walk along the Cammino Balteo hiking itinerary which here overlaps the route of the Via Francigena.

The village includes the Ohta house-fort, an interesting manor compound built around a significantly large Late Medieval tower with walls over two metres thick and an entrance about 8 metres off the ground. In the fourteenth century, the village was most probably enclosed by a curtain wall or by the connecting surrounding houses. In fact, the men of Arnad were granted concessions in 1321 by Amedeo di Vallaise including the lord’s right to order improvements to the village walls. In addition to some houses that belonged to local lords, which still present “noble” traits, there are many homes owned by the aristocracy, notaries and chamberlains which preserve valuable architectural details such as ample parlours, large fireplaces and graceful “viret or tornette”.

Built by the Vallaise family in the 17th century, the castle has 3 storeys flanked by 2 four-sided towers.
The internal façade opens onto the courtyard, wit a double arcade of light stone columns.

Interesting frescoes of ten fiefdoms owned by the Vallaise family can be admired in the Hall of Honour.
The park holds a hexagonal chapel dedicated to Saint Joseph, Saint Anthony and the Virgin Mary, and with a Baroque polychrome marble altar.

In past times the castle was linked by a covered gallery to the “Castello Inferiore della Costa”, now in ruins.

Acquired in 2010 from the Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley, the castle actually undergoes restoration works in order to be opened to the public.

In the hamlet of Ville stands a complex of buildings, currently in a state of decay and used as a rural dwelling, consisting of a fortified house and a tower, also known as Tor de l’Ohta. The square plan tower is missing its upper section and has walls measuring 2 metres in thickness.
The original door is 8 metres above the ground and is supported by an architrave with a blind arch above it.
You can see several Gothic windows, some decorated with coats of arms and frames.

The tower is mentioned in a document from 1295 as belonging to Pietro of Vallaise.
The structure presents analogies with the primitive towers of Planta in Gressan, Archet in Morgex and Tour d’Héréraz in Perloz.

The Church of San Martino is located in the chief town of Arnad-Le-Vieux. The current building has a trapezoidal layout, with three naves that preserve a roof made of Gothic, low pointed cross vaults. The pillars support large arches that rest on capitals. The facade has a central tuff portal from the 15th century, decorated with a keel-shaped arch, representing two intertwined tree trunks with an overhead rose window. There are slender, single mullioned windows. The bell-tower, with a square shape, has a high, pyramid-shaped spire. The ceiling on the left nave is decorated with Late Gothic frescoes. The subjects represented include “St. George fighting a dragon”, the “Feast of Herod”, a “Crucifixion” and the “Beheading of John the Baptist”.

The shrine is located at a height of 696 metres, in the Machaby valley and not far from the centre of Arnad, in a splendid position among the chestnut forests.
The building, which originates from the fourteenth century, was rebuilt entirely in 1687.
As well as numerous votive offerings, it also contains a seventeenth-century statue of the Virgin Mary, defined by the scholar Bruno Orlandoni as “one of the best masterpieces of Baroque sculpture in Valle d’Aosta”.

How to get there
Simple walk of about one hour through the woods, starting from Arnad’s village centre.

The visit
Celebration of the Holy Mass in the end of the pilgrimage on August 5th, the day of Madonna of the Snow, whom the shrine is dedicated to.

On other days, visits only on reservation, by contacting the parish.

The parish church dedicated to St. George boasts ancient origins: it was in fact already mentioned in a Papal Bull by Alexander III in 1176. The building was rebuilt during the early decades of the XVIII century and in 1742 the Gilardi brothers created the statues on the triumph beam. Other almost full renovations took place in 1833, while in 1897 the interior was frescoed by Alessandro and Augusto Artari, painters from Verrès.

INTERESTING DETAILS:
- the three altars, dating from the XVIII century and in Baroque style, in carved, painted and gilded wood;
- the choir lift, decorated with original caryatids
- the nineteenth-century pulpit in walnut, composed of various sculptured panels.

The parish church museum contains, among other things, the following pieces:
- bas-relief depicting Our Lady of Mercy, dating from around 1600, perhaps originally from the chapel in Ruine, which was destroyed by a flood in the XVII century
- bas-relief depicting St. George, the princess and the dragon, dating from the first half of the XVII century
- numerous, precious sculptures and sacred furnishings.

The name of the town, Pontboset, evokes its main characteristic:the presence of many bridges.
In fact, starting from the Chief Town you can cross six of them with a pleasant walk:amongst the many bridges the ones that are particularly beautiful are the one shaped like a donkey’s back on the Ayasse (bridge of Bozet) that gives access to the mule paths for the villages of Piolly and Fourneir, the beautiful three arched stone bridge that gives access to Envers and the one of Vaseras on the Manda river.

Furthermore in 1878 a beautiful stone bridge was built between the villages of Savin and Fassiney. It was built to replace the previous wooden one, that resisted all the floods of that time.

The original church was built between 1622 and 1624, therefore shortly before the foundation of the parish (1625), but it was then rebuilt in 1843-44, working on the plans and under the management of the architect Pacifique Dallou of Donnas. In 1910, the internal walls were frescoed by the painters Stornone, Sardi and Carretti.
The altar dates back to the nineteenth century, but contains statues from 1706, by Serra, a maestro from Biella. The triumphal crucifix is said to date back to 1625. In the square in front of the church there is a beautiful stone fountain, built in 1830 by the stone cutter Peraldo of Biella.

An original architecture, linked to the impervious land

In a rocky and sloping valley like Champorcher, crossing the river banks was not an easy task. Placing the bridge foundations on top of rocky gulfs, over turbulent waters, the master builders of the XVII and XVIII centuries created masterpieces, that still today stand and resist the impressive floods.

Only 6 km from the central vallley, at the chieftown of Pontboset, a path joins different winding mule-back bridges on the Rathus river; these bridges lead to the sunny hillside where there are numerous abandoned villages.

These houses, attached to the slopes, are characterized by their “soulei”, high haylofts closed by vertical walls bound by pillars on the corners. Small two-storey stone homes, built beside each other, were used as drying rooms for chestnuts and remind us that, in 1000 meters in altitude, these populations existed thanks to this nutritious fruit.

Higher up the culture of grains takes on heroic aspects. The rye fields of long ago, overhanging one on top of the other, thanks to the layout of the hillside, characterize this landscape and were entirely built by man.
In the villages, like Outre l’Eve, numerous grain barns show the expert skills of the carpenters of this mountain valley, which is worth discovering.
The ethnographic hemp museum at Chardonney was built under an old XVIII century barn, furnishing an inhabited stable, much like the one of Champorcher in the winter. The inhabitants were specialized in the weaving of hemp and this precious material was carried from all over Valle d’Aosta. It was a primary material in the daily lives of the people and they used it to make underwear, drapes and sheets.

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