Castelgrande

Rock came before architecture at Castelgrande. The spur rising out of the Ticino valley floor has been fortified since Roman times, and the castle grown upon it is the oldest and largest of the three that command Bellinzona. Since 2000 the group — Castelgrande, Montebello, Sasso Corbaro and the Murata that links them — has stood on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Between 1981 and 1991 the Ticinese architect Aurelio Galfetti cut a lift shaft up through the rock from the old town and reordered the interior, an intervention still studied as a model of how to build inside a monument without pretending to be old. The walled courtyard serves in summer as an open-air auditorium, and opera galas have been given in it.