Torri del Benaco

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added on 10-19-03

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These have been added on the 4 of August 2003:

The Scaliger Castle

The castle was commissioned in 1383 by Antonio della Scala, the last lord of the Della Scala dynasty of Verona, and built upon the ruins of an existing manor house dating back to the late Middle Ages, possibly the 9th - 10th century. Today it contains a small museum with an exhibit of the rock engravings found on Mount Baldo and rooms dedicated to fishing, olive growing, and stone working. A lemon grove with its characteristic enclosures stretches along its southern side. The lemon grove was built in 1753 and is still tended using traditional methods.

The Santicssima Trinità
(added 7-11-03 at 0800est)
The Santicssima Trinità is in the Calderini Square in front of the little port. Once it was the seat of the Gardesana Dall' Acqua Council. The nobleman Giovanni Menaroli at the end of XIV or early XV century probably built it. Evidence derives from his will, written in Torri the 5^thof August in 1401 that states to dedicate the church, to equip it with goods, vestments and sacred furnishings.
The Menaroli family had the giuspatronato of this noble church, namely the right to designate the chaplain with the obligation to maintain him, till the end of the XVII century when the Menarolis extinguished.
On the 14^thof November in 1697 with an Episcopal bull of collation the church and the connected benefit were given to don Giuseppe Marai the priest of Torri. In those years the church from noble private oratory, became a public church; the counsellors of the Gardesan dall’Acqua attended it.
It had been a public oratory till the WWI when as a State Property; it was used by the French troops stationed in Torri. Profaned and ruined, the building was restored at the end of the '20s when it became a sacred war temple.
It has a very simple structure with a single aisle that leads to the altar of the eighteenth century. The altar was in the St. John the Baptist church and it was settled against the western wall of the oratory during the reconstruction of the '20s; originally the high altar dedicated to the Santissima Trinità was against the eastern wall and a second one dedicated to St. John the Evangelist was against the northern wall. Now the altar contains a bronze by Giovanni Righetti. It portraits the pitiful Virgin supporting the body of a soldier on the sides, two tombstones contains the name of the Fallen of Torri. Also, on the pews are the names of soldiers that have fallen.
The latest restoration was done during the '60s and lately a last one by Erminio Signorini.