the visit

The eighteenth century majestic gate leads to the Courtyard of the Giants. A courtyard often used for theatre performances, tournaments and naumachiae: the lawn, thanks to an ingenious plumbing system, could be completely flooded.

In front of the entrance you can admire a fountain built on orders of Pio Enea II Degli Obizzi in the second half of the 17th century to sanction the bond between the Catajo Castle and the Orient. The fountain displays mythological features because of the presence of Bacchus and pure exoticism because of the statue of the elephant that gives the fountain its name. The elephant sculpture is one of only three of its kind to have been created in the 17th century in Italy, together with that of Bernini in Rome and the sculpture in Parco dei Mostri in Bomarzo.

The unique external staircase that leads up to the piano nobile was designed to be suitable for a horse’s hooves. The main floor is covered in beautiful frescoes and features the genealogical tree of the Obizzi family, from the forefather Obicio I to Pio Enea I, who had the castle built. From the hall the tour takes the visitor to the state apartment, conceived to host lavish parties, entirely frescoed by Giovanni Battista Zelotti, disciple of Paolo Veronese and one of the major representatives of Venetian renaissance painting.

Zelotti’s pictorial cycle is one of the most complete, important and better preserved of its kind: it is one of the first examples of “self-congratulatory” art in north-eastern Italy. The fourty paintings depict the events and deeds of the Obizzi family, such as battles, weddings and tragic assassinations, and also feature allegories and garlands with cherubs and flowers in the ceilings and overdoors.

Attached to the castle lies a big garden that has borne witness to the various transformations of the castle over time. To this day there is still a fish farm surrounded by magnolias and a collection of citrus trees. The garden proudly conserves three of the most important trees in Europe: two magnificent eighteen century magnolias and a majestic giant sequoia, one of the first imported from America.