- Nestled in a grassy basin at the foot of the Dolomites of Pala Group / Pale di San Martino, San Martino di Castrozza (1,487 m asl) is a well-known tourist resort in the Dolomites. Its name derives from the once notorious hospice of San Martino di Castrozza, which existed before the village did and of which only the church of San Martino remains nowadays.
- San Martino di Castrozza is by origin and foundation a monastery of the Benedictine Order of the Calalmaldolense congregation that was presumably built around the year 1000 (from an official document of 1294, it appears to have been present since at least 1058, under Pope Benedict X). The convent’s hospice welcomed wayfarers crossing the Rolle Pass. The convent had rights in the valleys of Primiero, Adige, Fiemme, Valsugana, and in Treviso, Feltre, Asolo and Castelfranco. The church is traced back to the late 11th century.
- Due to the small number of monks, at the time 8, and the “poor observance of the rules”, the monastery was suppressed by the Council of Constance (1414-1418) and replaced with a priory headed by a secular cleric, whose appointment was proposed by the Welsperg Counts (and later by the Mels-Colloredo family of Vienna) and made effective by the Bishop of Feltre until 1786 and then by that of Trento.
- The opening of the Rolle Pass carriage road, around 1875, and the construction of the first hotels caused the hospice to lose its centrality.
- In 1873, the first alpine hotel in San Martino di Castrozza was built, replacing the woodshed of the hospice; the birth of San Martino di Castrozza as a tourist resort is attributed to that year. The center was rapidly transformed after the Great War, with the development of the ski resort and the hotel-receptive structure.
- Until January 1 2016, when the municipalities of High Primiero were merged into one, the village of San Martino di Castrozza was administered by the municipalities of Sirór (western part, to the left bank of the Cismón Torrent) and Tonadico (eastern part).
- The only noteworthy historic building to visit in San Martino di Castrozza is the Church of San Martino, whose Romanesque bell tower-thirteenth century-is the only remaining original element of the Benedictine hospice. In the apse of the church is a large fresco by G. Zancolli from 1928 depicting St. Martin.
References
- AA.VV. (1994). Primiero l’arte sacra. Casse rurali di Mezzano, Primiero e Vanoi. Primiero.
- Battisti, C. (1912). Guida di Primiero. Studio Bibliografico Adige. Trento.
