Castello di Bardi — Moroello's ghost on film

OVERVIEW

The castle of Bardi, also called the Landi castle, is a stone fortress on a 'rock' of red jasper above the village of Bardi, in the province of Parma, at the confluence of the Noveglia and the Ceno — in the Middle Ages a stage on one of the variants of the Via Francigena. The name Bardi comes from 'Longobardi'. Its walls with a walkable rampart follow the crag around the keep; inside are the residence, soldiers' quarters, a chapel and a torture room.

HISTORY

Built in the early 9th and finished in the early 10th century under Berengar of Friuli, it was sold in 898 to Bishop Everard of Piacenza as a refuge from Hungarian raids. In 1257 the Ghibelline Ubertino Landi of Piacenza bought it and made it his family's capital; Charles V made the Landi marquises with the right to mint coins in 1551, and Federico Landi turned it into a princely residence in the late 16th century. Its decline began with the extinction of the Landi in 1682.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The story began in 1995 with letters to the Gazzetta di Parma. Two journalists, Gianni Santi and Daniele Kalousi, spent the night in the fortress and said they had photographed an unstable, milky form that materialised behind one of them; Italian television took up the story, and then Daniele Gullà, an enthusiast of the esoteric, photographed with a thermal imaging system what he said was the outline of a kneeling knight. A row broke out over the reliability of the photographs — accusations of creating a media case for profit, counter-accusations of prejudice. After a brief season of fame the story faded with no conclusion. Believers say the ghost is Moroello, a knight who returned from war wearing the enemy's insignia in mockery of the beaten foe — so that his beloved Soleste, seeing 'enemy' troops approach and believing him dead, threw herself from the keep, and he killed himself when he learned of it.

VISITING

The fortress can be visited, with its Museum of Valley Civilisation, Museum of Fauna and Poaching, and Archaeological Museum of the Ceno Valley.