Castel d'Ario Castle was a strategic element of a defensive system into the Mantuan territory, together with Castelbelforte and Villimpenta Castles, placed on the borderline with Veneto.
Castel D'Ario Castle represents one of the main medieval fenced-in castles with a pentagonal shape. Five towers are visible, included that one at the entrance, where people can still see the location where there was a portcullis and the ruins of the opposite ravelin. A significant restoration of the praetorian Palace at the end of the 20th century has brought to life frescos at the walls of the first floor, with the escutcheons of the Scaligeris, the lords from Verona, owners of the Castle for twenty years in the second half of the 14th century.
One of the towers inside the castle is called Torre della Fame; the tower was called like this because in the middle of the 19th century some skeletons were found out in this place; probably they belonged to members of Pico della Mirandola and Bonacolsi families, locked up and starved here. A headstone on the castle door reminds to this event.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.