Antognolla Castle - Province of Perugia - Umbria 2021

The castle of Antognolla is an imposing fortified settlement located north of Perugia, located on the northern slopes of Mount Tezio. Its name derives from the Antognolla or Antognolli family, one of the most ancient and noble families of Perugia, who lived in Porta Santa Susanna and which has been talked about a lot in the chronicles since the 12th century. The period of construction of the castle is not known; the first news about this locality dates back to 1174, the year in which the presence of a Benedictine monastery dedicated to St. Peter is attested, of which the only remaining testimony is the crypt of the church dedicated to Sant'Agata. For unspecified reasons, the settlement, from a monastic, became strictly military; in the mid-1200s it was mentioned as a castrum and was already owned by the Antognolla family. With the papal bull of 1399, Pope Boniface IX elevated the county of Antognolla as a fiefdom, granting it to Ruggero di Antognolla and his heirs for the services rendered to the Holy See. In 1628 it became the property of Cornelio Oddi who, together with his brothers, already owned the castle of Murlo, the castle of Valenzina and the castle of Procoio in the area. In 1836, together with other properties in the valley such as the castles of Valenzina and Murlo, the county of Antognolla was bought by Giovanni Battista Guglielmi of Rome, who carried out numerous restorations. Guglielmi was invested with the titles of Count of Antognolla and Marquis of Valenzina as well as other noble and knightly distinctions: from that moment on, the members of this family added the predicate of the count's title, becoming Guglielmi d'Antognolla. The Guglielmi family for lack of male heirs sold the property in 1921 and, after a few changes of hands, it ended up among the assets of one of the companies headed by the Agnelli family. Today the castle and the estate are involved in an important tourism development intervention.