Palazzo Castelmur

As an important testimony to the culture of returnees from Graubünden, Palazzo Castelmur shapes the appearance of the hamlet of Coltura near Stampa in the Bergell, Canton of Graubünden. The estate combines local building traditions with a palatial structure added in the 19th century.

The origins include a patrician house from 1723 that belonged to the Redolfi family. Between 1850 and 1854 Baron Giovanni von Castelmur and his wife Annetta commissioned a representative palazzo on the south side of the house, complete with side towers, machicolations and battlements. Since 1962 the building has been owned by a Bergell foundation and is open to the public.

Inside the building’s historical development is still legible: the transition to the southern annex is visible in the differing floor coverings, and larger window sections on the west façade point from the outside to the later extension. On the ground floor and the first floor rooms can be seen with their original fittings; one room is finished with lacquered paneling in Swiss stone pine, while other rooms feature partially painted wallpapers. In the newer part are the dining room, the salon, the bedrooms decorated in red and green, and four small tower rooms.

The larger rooms display striking wall and ceiling paintings, including trompe-l’œil works from 1853 by Gaspare Tirinanzi; further paintings are by Zaviero Tessera. In the vaulted ground-floor corridor numerous portraits by members of the von Salis-Marschlins family are on view; the southern end is formed by a glass door depicting a knight and a lady, dated 1860, by an unknown master. African spears and shields are exhibited in the first-floor corridor. The top floor houses a permanent exhibition on the history of the Bündner confectioners.