Castello della Rotta

The building stands on a roughly square plan organized around a central courtyard that contains a cistern. Three ranges of rooms of differing heights enclose this courtyard and display regular forms typical of a fortified farm that grew into a small castle. The exterior faces are built in brick and show later alterations, with a mixture of medieval elements and subsequent rectangular openings added in later periods. The site sits in an isolated, wooded area reached by a secondary road that leads toward the old Templar bridge over the Banna, of which only a few scattered ruins remain.

A prominent quadrangular tower dominates the main front and marks the principal defensive presence of the complex. The tower has barred windows and is topped by a small bell gable. Three brick vertical slits in the façade testify to the former arrangement of a drawbridge at the entrance, and traces of an ancient surrounding ditch remain visible. These elements relate to the fifteenth‑century campaign of fortification carried out to protect the place from brigands.

Decorative medieval features survive in the form of carved window openings and parapet fragments. Two of the original three pointed‑arch paired windows from the fifteenth century remain in place and a section of crenellation is still visible on the left side of the building. Above the entrance a white marble plaque bears the Valperga di Masino coat of arms, and a Maltese cross is incised on a stone jamb beside a doorway, reflecting the long connection with the Hospitaller order.

Internally, the main block beside the tower contains several rooms that served domestic and representative purposes during occupation. One wing contains the former conventual sector with a cellar, a reception hall and a chapel set beneath a pointed vault. A lower building on the right originally housed stables and storage spaces; these rooms are partly ruined today, with clear signs of later reuse and decay in the service ranges.

Excavation work undertaken during restoration in the 1980s revealed both structural details and an important burial. The campaigns exposed aspects of the fifteenth‑century plan and, when trenches were dug for modern water connections, archaeologists uncovered a male skeleton accompanied by a prominent metal cross, armor fragments and the bones of a large animal interpreted as likely belonging to the man’s horse. The human remains and associated objects were found in situ within the compound.

The overall condition of the complex is described as fair, with conserved medieval fabric alongside evident later modifications. Brick façades show later inserted windows, some service buildings remain partly ruined, and the courtyard cistern survives as a central feature. Local oral commentary and later narratives have attached legends of haunting and astrological significance to the place, narratives that began to spread after the last change of ownership in the 1980s.