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AAt the foot of the Rocca hill stands a majestic complex of buildings named Cini Castle, which was turned into a medieval dwelling house, a defensive tower and then into a Venetian villa between the eleventh and the sixteenth century.
The Castle is formed by four principal structures; the most ancient one is composed of the late eleventh-century building called Romanesque House (Casa Romanica) and of the Little Castle (Castelletto) dated back to the twelfth century.
During the thirteenth century the Castle was enlarged with the fortified building called the Ezzelino’s Tower (Torre Ezzeliniana), a massive tower built up by Ezzelino III Da Romano, deputy of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia. The large rooms in the keep are characterised by “towered” fireplaces made by the fourteenth-century Da Carrara noble family of Padua.
Since 1405, after the conquest of Monselice by the Venetian Serenissima Republic, the Castle was entirely bought by the Marcello aristocratic Venetian family, who undertook the construction called Ca’ Marcello (Marcello’s Palace), i.e. a beautiful connecting building in Venetian-gothic style.
The Marcello family got along with the enlargement of the rooms in the Ezzelino’s Tower turning it into a summer dwelling place or Venetian villa, which has been used till the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The Marcellos enriched then the Castle in Monselice erecting at the end of the XVIth century the Renaissance building called the Library and restoring the Venetian Courtyard with the private Marcello’s chapel dated back to the early eighteenth century.
The fall of Serenissima Republic at the end of the eighteenth century started a slow and progressive decline for the ancient manor of Monselice. In that occasion the property of the buildings passed from the Marcellos to other local aristocratic families, among which the rich family Girardi-Cini.
During the World War I the Royal Italian Army used the Castle for military purposes, and left it heavily sacked in 1919.
In 1935 the property of the decaying structure passed by inheritance to Count Vittorio Cini – a very refined and cultured person -, who started a radical restoration for the purpose of re-creating a place that accurately reflected the past. To this end, each room was enriched with a precious collection of authentic furniture, paintings, carpets, tapestries, ceramics, instruments and fabrics in Gothic and Renaissance style. Amazing is the rich and valuable weapon collection in the Armoury.
In 1981 the Castle of Monselice became a property of the Region Veneto and since then it has been transformed in a regional “living” museum, thus forming a unique and valuable museum complex together with the Antiquarium Longobardo and the Mastio Federiciano.