Discover Rocca dei Tempesta

The Rocca is a polygonal enclosure in brick, with towers at the angles and a taller keep, standing on an artificial island entirely ringed by a wide moat.

The moat is the defining element and is fed from the Marzenego. On this flat plain there is no high ground to build on, so water does the work that a hill does elsewhere -- the same logic that produced the moated castles of the Po valley.

The walls survive to a good height with their wall-walk line still legible, and the towers are square and open-backed in the medieval manner.

Because the interior buildings are gone, the site reads as a diagram: you can see the whole defensive plan at once, which is rarely possible in a castle that stayed in use.

Two gate towers connected the Rocca to the town, and the Torre dell'Orologio and the bell tower nearby belong to the same fortified system.