Castello Brown

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Castello Brown
Portofino castle.jpg
Castello Brown, as seen from the harbour
LocationVia alla Penisola
16034 Portofino, Genoa
Italy
Coordinates 44°18′07.48″N9°12′51.50″E / 44.3020778°N 9.2143056°E / 44.3020778; 9.2143056
Area Liguria
Built400 AD; expanded 1557; converted to villa from 1867
Architect Giovanni Maria Olgiati  [ it ]
Italy North location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location of Castello Brown in Northern Italy

Castello Brown is a historic house museum located high above the harbour of Portofino, northern Italy. Its site has been used for military defence since Roman times. As a Genoese coastal fort, it was called the Castello di San Giorgio .

Contents

After peace fell upon the region in the early 19th century, the Castello was abandoned. Some decades later, it was purchased by Montague Yeats-Brown, the English consul, who remodelled it as a comfortable villa. His descendants held the property until 1949, then sold it to an English couple who restored several ruined sections, and in turn sold it in 1961 to the City of Portofino, which now opens it to the public. [1]

Elizabeth von Arnim wrote and set her novel The Enchanted April at the Castello in 1922. The award-winning 1991 movie adaptation featuring Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright was filmed on site. [1]

Military history

Castello Brown from the port Castello Brown - Portofino - panoramio.jpg
Castello Brown from the port

The castle's site is well suited for harbour defence, and appears to have been so used since Roman times. Fortifications from the fourth century AD have been found underneath the modern castle; [1] :63 a castrum and a turris are recorded.

The castle continued to function as a military fortress until about 1600, then became increasingly residential. [1] :79 Richard the Lionheart stayed for several days on his way to the Third Crusade. [1] :61

As Portofino was an important harbour, the Castello featured in many naval battles between the 13th and 19th centuries, withstanding attacks by the Genoese (Ghibelline) admiral Aitone D'Oria in 1330, by a Venetian fleet in 1431, and by the British Navy in 1814. The castello was one of two key coastal fortresses of the Republic of Genoa. Along with Ventimiglia, it housed a garrison led by a patrician castellano. [1] :79

In 1442, it housed two bombards that fired stone cannon-balls. According to the Record Office of Genoa, cannon batteries were constructed on the site in the early 16th century, and military engineer Giovanni Maria Olgiati  [ it ] drew up plans for a full fortress circa 1554. [1] :65 In 1575 the Castello was instrumental in turning back an attack on the town by Giò Andrea Doria. The structure was enlarged from 1622 to 1624, and survived in this form for a century and a half. By 1697, the armaments included two half-cannon and 14 other guns, and the Castello's inventory included 50 muskets and various arquebus, halberds and spears. [1] :63

The Republic of Genoa fell in 1797. In the next year, the Castello's little tower was destroyed in an English attack on Napoleon's Ligurian Republic. Napoleon garrisoned the Castello and increased its armament to protect coastal traffic against the British fleet, which unsuccessfully attacked it again in March 1814. [1] :61

The castle was abandoned after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The fortress was formally disarmed in 1867, just before it was sold to the Yeats-Brown family. During the German occupation of Italy, the castello was used as a prison for partisans. [1] :70

Residential history

Relief set into terrace wall Terrace at Castello Brown, Portofino.jpg
Relief set into terrace wall
Alter piece displayed in Castello Brown (photo from 2012) Portofino Castello Brown oltarz.jpg
Alter piece displayed in Castello Brown (photo from 2012)

In 1867, the structure was purchased for 7,000 lire by Montague Yeats-Brown (1834-1921), then English consul in Genoa, [1] then a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Brown engaged the architect Alfredo D'Andrade  [ it ], and with advice from his artist friend and fellow-consul James Harris the fort was transformed to a comfortable villa without substantial alteration in its general form. [2] Brown bought many church reliefs during the general selling-up of churches in the 1880s and made them a feature of the villa's interior and terraces. [1] :120

Lieutenant-Colonel John Baber CBE and his wife Jocelyn [3] purchased Castello Brown in 1949, and sold it to the municipality in 1961. Throughout this time, the property was managed by several generations of the Garbarino family. [1] :24

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Baber, Jocelyn; Baber, John (1965). Castello, Portofino. B. T. Batsford.:25
  2. "I Castelli di Portofino e di Paraggi". Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  3. Jocelyn Baber, who in 1968 purchased Widworthy Barton, Crediton, Devon, and "worked hard for many years to restore it to its original state", and donated funds to establish The Baber Fund for emergency repairs to historic buildings, administered by The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB)

Further reading