What to see in Asolo, an itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including the Rocca, the house of the actress Eleonora Duse, the Duomo, the Civic Museum and the Queen's Castle.
Tourist information
Small town located in a hilly landscape in the province of Treviso, Asolo was inhabited since the Neolithic period and became a Roman municipality of considerable importance during the first century before Christ, when the aqueduct, theater and spas were erected.
In the early Middle Ages, it became a bishopric, later it suffered heavy destruction at the time of the barbarian invasions.
Numerous men of culture of all nationalities stayed in this small town, including Pietro Bembo, Giosuè Carducci, Ada Negri, Lorenzo Lotto, Giorgione, Palladio, Canova, Gustavo Modena and the actress Eleonora Duse, whose house you can visit in the north-western part of the town, in addition to the grave in the cemetery of the Sant'Anna district.
The historic center of Asolo has a medieval imprint, still enclosed within the ancient walls and dominated by the Rocca.
The fortress, which was used in the late imperial period as a fortress, was restored in the following centuries, definitively losing its military and strategic function in the sixteenth century.
What see
The Cathedral of Asolo, which was built in the same place where in Roman times there was a Roman thermal building, preserves inside valuable works, including the Assumption of the Virgin painted by Lorenzo Lotto and the Assumption by Jacopo Bassano.
The loggia del Capitano opens onto the cathedral square, externally embellished with frescoes, coats of arms and tombstones.
In the internal rooms there is the Civic Museum, where archaeological material is exhibited, as well as sculptures and paintings by Canova, Strozzi, Canaletto, Luca Giordano and other works by important artists, included in the collection of Caterina Cornaro, first Queen of Cyprus and after Asolo.
In the room dedicated to Eleonora Duse it is possible to admire a valuable collection of memories, memorabilia and correspondence attributable to this famous actress.
Walking along the via Regina Cornaro you reach the Castello della Regina which in 1820 was partially destroyed.
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Among the remains still visible are the tower with the clock, the severed tower called Reata, the Audience hall and the Eleonora Duse Theater.
In an area of the garden is the nineteenth-century Villa Beach, once owned by the English poet Robert Browning.
Worth visiting are the thirteenth century Church of San Gottardo, the Church of Santa Caterina, containing frescoes from the 1400s, and the Church of Sant'Anna, in whose cemetery is the tomb of Eleonora Duse.
