Cly is a primitive style castle located in the Italian municipality of Saint-Denis, Aosta Valley. It consists of a keep with a surrounding wall, rising from a bed of metamorphic rock on the edge of a fault line. While it was first mentioned in a document from 1207, dendrochronology analysis of the timbers in the keep has dated it to 1027.
Originally a fief held from the Counts of Savoy, the castle passed to the direct ownership of the Duchy of Savoy in 1376. The Duchy installed a castellan to administer the site until it was abandoned in 1550. In the centuries that followed, the structure fell into ruins.
Eventually, the ruins became the property of the nearby town of Saint-Denis. Today, the castle is visible atop the hill overlooking Chambave.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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