I can imagine that the Veneto hill town of Asolo might be a difficult place to enjoy on a summer weekend because it's a very chic town that doesn't lack for admirers. On a pleasant Sunday in February there was no shortage of Veneto residents who had made the trip up to Asolo to enjoy lunch and a leisurely afternoon admiring the Andrea Roggi sculptures.
However, in the absence of foreign tourists there was still plenty of parking spaces and we could walk into a restaurant without pre-booking so there is a lot to be said for visiting Italy out of season if, like us, you prefer hassle-free sightseeing.
Asolo has long been a magnet for discerning travelers and even Napoleon spent a night here in March 1797, two months before his troops entered Venice as the first foreign army in over 1,000 years to penetrate the heart of the Venetian Republic.
Called "the city of a hundred horizons" by the poet Giosuè Carducci, Asolo became a place for writers and intellectuals in the 19th and 20th centuries. Robert Browning was the first of these and he developed a curious obsession for Asolo and yet strangely never chose to live here.
He published a drama written in verse called Pippa Passes three years after his first visit in 1838. It was set in Asolo and the last line is still used occasionally in conversation today though mostly by people unaware of the source "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world".
Despite recurring dreams of Asolo, Browning's second visit to the town was not until forty years later in 1878 and then after a further decade he persuaded his friend Katherine Bronson to buy a house there so his visits could be more frequent, but by then he had little time left, dying in Venice in 1889 just as his final volume of poetry, named Asolando, was published.
His son Pen Browning however did live in Asolo, eventually buying the Villa Scotti Pasini, before he himself died on the 100th anniversary of his father's birth when Asolo renamed a street in memory of Robert Browning.
Another famous resident was Eleonora Duse, one of the most celebrated actresses of the late 19th century, who will always be associated with the person and plays of Gabriele d'Annunzio. She lived in Asolo only in her last few years and is buried in the town.
Andrea Roggi's sculpture 'Famiglia in volo' (left) and 'Fecunditas' (right)
We came to Asolo on a Sunday in February not just to visit Asolo for the first time, but also because there was an open air display of many of the works of the Italian painter and sculptor Andrea Roggi, whose Tree of Life sculpture we first came across a couple of years ago in his home town of Castiglion Fiorentino when visiting the Tanganelli winery.
His Tree of Peace sculpture was on display in Pietrasanta during our visit there in 2021 and has recently found a permanent home in the Florence side street of Via dei Georgofili to commemorate the massacre of five people that took place there in 1993 when the Sicilian mafia detonated a huge bomb in an unsuccessful effort to destroy the Uffizi gallery.
We are both fans of Roggi's work and it was especially fitting to see ten of his sculptures spread around this town that has had such a long association with the Arts.
Andrea Roggi's sculpture 'Speranza' (left) and 'Il volo della conoscenza' (right)
The Rocca at the top of the steep hill above the town is presumably the reason for Carducci's famous quote about Asolo but as the Rocca was not open during our visit there were no hundred horizons for us. Therefore I would not recommend walking up to the Rocca unless you know for sure that it is open, because there is not a single view east towards Venice from outside the Rocca.
Another famous resident of Asolo was Dame Freya Stark, or more accurately another famous person who retired in Asolo. She had visited Asolo as a young girl in the first few years of the 20th century because her father was a friend of Pen Browning but it was only after an action-packed life as an explorer, photographer and travel writer that she came to live in Asolo in the late 1960s and died there at the age of 100 in 1993.
She accomplished much in her life and moved in quite high circles, evidenced by the fact that in retirement she was even accorded the honor of a visit by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at her Asolo home.
Andrea Roggi's 'Le radici della rinascita' sculpture (left) in front of the castle and 'SRNGAR' sculpture (right)
Unlike the Rocca, the Castello della Regina Cornaro in Asolo does not require a long walk up a steep hill and with its origins in the 10th century it is even more ancient than the Rocca. Its most famous occupant was the unlucky Venetian Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro.
Unlucky in the sense that the always pragmatic rulers of the Venetian Republic first arranged for her to marry James the Bastard in 1468, the illegitimate heir to the Cypriot throne, who promptly died after the wedding and then some years later Venice recalled her against her will.
Her compensation was to retain the title of Queen and live in the Asolo castle and just when she was once again enjoying life the War of Cambrai broke out in 1509 and she had to flee to Venice, dying the following year.
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