The Legends
The Castle is brought to life by the many infamous legends that surround it to this day.
The most famous of these concerns the young Bianca Maria Aloisia, daughter of Jacopo (James) Malaspina and Oliva Grimaldi. The beautiful girl was in love with a young man who wanted to marry at all costs. Their parents were opposed to that shameful for the family coat of arms, and threatened the poor girl with incarceration and meals of bread and water in the dungeon of the Castle. The young couple were not detered by these threats and refused to give up their love. This rebellion forced her parents to make a tough decision, banishing him to the country and locking the young girl in a convent. Not even this could keep them apart... when this was then reported to the castle, they were both locked in prisons and tortured. Even this did not stop the young lovers from meeting again. Only then, in order to avoid further scandal, the girl was walled living in a cell, together with a dog, a symbol of fidelity, and a wild boar, symbol of rebellion.
To confirm the authenticity of the story, recent excavations were carried out and the remains of bones probably belonging to a girl and two animals, were discovered in the castle.
As if this story were not violent and brutal enough, the form of a girl with long hair, laid on her back, is sometimes seen wafting through rooms of the castle...
Fascinated and attracted to these stories, experts and enthusiasts of the occult and paranormal phenomena have carried out a series of experiments in these rooms with video cameras. In one of these movies a dark figure was clearly seen moving across the room from wall to wall, as it were driven by the wind.
Another story told in the Castle is about the Marchioness Cristina Pallavicini, who’s life was stained with blood and crimes. Her husband Ippolito was actually one of her victims. She was also the executioner of brothers Pasquale and Ferdinando during a struggle for the supremacy on the feudal estate. She remained the guardian of small Carlo Agostino, her son, and ruled there until her son reached maturity.
She was a picture of charm, lust, mystery and death. In her life she had many lovers, and the legend says that the Marchioness, refused to be discovered or betrayed by any of them, after having spending the night with someone, she would trick them into falling through a trapdoor placed at the center of her bedroom. The desperate cries of the unfortunate men, given the particular acoustics of the room, could not heard outside the door. At the time, these crimes were never discovered.
In the bedroom, there are still very visible traces of an ancient trapdoor. Under this was recently discovered another room (nicknamed "the torture room") perfectly equal in size, where the bodies of the victims probably fell.
In addition to these, there are many other disturbing legends written in the walls of the manor: the bed that breathes and whose heart beats, the photographer who immortalized in the mirror room ducal the figure of a woman, the images imprinted in the throne room...
