Monselice historical timeline

Origins

The hill — Mons Silicis, the flint mountain — was fortified in antiquity and became a Lombard and then imperial stronghold controlling the road south from Padua.

Turning points

Frederick II built the keep on the summit in the thirteenth century, and the fortifications below grew under Ezzelino da Romano and then the Carraresi.

Influential people

In 1605 the Duodo family commissioned Vincenzo Scamozzi — Palladio's successor — to lay out a devotional route up the hill past their villa, with seven chapels standing for the seven pilgrimage basilicas of Rome.

Cultural evolution

A papal privilege attached the same indulgences to walking the Monselice chapels as to making the Roman pilgrimage itself, which made a hill in the Veneto a legitimate substitute for a journey most people could never afford.

Present-day significance

The castle at the foot was restored between the 1930s and 1940s by Vittorio Cini, who furnished it as a museum of medieval and Renaissance domestic life. The hill above has been quarried for trachyte for centuries, and the scars are visible.