All the monuments in Trento
The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.
Duomo di TrentoTrento CathedralCouncil of Trent, Wheel of Fortune rose window, early Christian basilica beneath, Neptune fountainTrento's cathedral, dedicated to Saint Vigilius, was begun in 1212 under Prince-Bishop Federico Vanga to the design of Adamo d'Arogno, and it mixes Lombard Romanesque with Gothic across three centuries of work. It matters beyond Trentino: the Council of Trent (1545 to 1563) held sessions here, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation took shape in this nave. On the north transept is a rose window depicting the Wheel of Fortune, and beneath the floor lie the remains of a fourth-century early Christian basilica, visited with the diocesan museum ticket. Outside, the Piazza Duomo with the Neptune fountain and the frescoed Cazuffi-Rella houses is among the finest small squares in the Alps.Plan the visit
Castello del BuonconsiglioBuonconsiglio CastlePrince-bishops’ residence, Cycle of the Months frescoes, Renaissance loggia, Torre AquilaFor five centuries the prince-bishops of Trento ruled from this castle, adding a Renaissance loggia and gardens onto a thirteenth-century fortress as their power grew. Its best-known treasure hides inside the Torre Aquila (Eagle Tower): the Cycle of the Months, commissioned around 1400 by Prince-Bishop Giorgio di Liechtenstein from a still-unidentified Bohemian master. Eleven surviving frescoed panels (March was lost to fire) show nobles hunting and feasting beside peasants sowing, pruning and threshing through the year, one of the fullest pictures of medieval social life anywhere in Europe. The prince-bishopric ended when Napoleon’s troops arrived in 1796; the castle is now Trentino’s provincial museum, its rooms carrying collections of archaeology and art that span 10,000 years, from prehistoric finds to nineteenth-century pieces.
CastleHidden GemCastel ThunOriginal family furnishings, Stanza del Vescovo pine room, 2010 reopening, Buonconsiglio museum networkThe Thun family established their seat in the Val di Non around the mid-thirteenth century, and by 1629 had risen to become Counts Thun-Hohenstein of the Holy Roman Empire, one of Trentino's most powerful noble houses. Their castle survives as one of the best furnished in the region, its rooms still holding the family's original furniture, art and decoration, including the Stanza del Vescovo, a seventeenth-century room entirely paneled in Swiss pine with a coffered ceiling and a maiolica stove. The Autonomous Province of Trento purchased the castle in 1992 and spent eighteen years restoring it before reopening it to the public on April 17, 2010, as the fourth site in the Buonconsiglio Castle museum network, a milestone that finally let visitors inside a residence the same family had occupied for nearly seven centuries.
MUSE Museo delle ScienzeMUSE Science MuseumRenzo Piano architecture, glacier-to-rainforest exhibit descent, suspended animal displays, LEED Gold certificationRenzo Piano designed MUSE to echo the jagged profile of the Dolomites visible from its site in Trento's Le Albere district, a 130-by-35-meter building across six levels, two below ground and four above, that opened on July 27, 2013, replacing the older Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali that had operated since 1964. The exhibition itself descends the way a mountain does, starting with glaciers at the top and working down through Alpine ecology to a tropical greenhouse at the base, with taxidermied animals suspended in a central void that visitors look up into from multiple floors at once. Sustainable engineering runs through the whole structure, earning MUSE a Gold LEED certification, and the surrounding Le Albere neighborhood, also designed by Piano, gives the museum a modern residential setting unusual for a science museum of this scale.
More within reach
Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Trentino-Alto Adige.
Madonna di CampiglioUNESCOBrenta DolomitesWestern Dolomite towers, Via delle Bocchette ledge routes, Campiglio ski slopes, reintroduced brown bears
BressanoneHidden GemSäben AbbeyFormer bishop's seat, Benedictine-turned-Cistercian monastery, Stations of the Cross climb, Acropolis of Tyrol views
RoveretoMART RoveretoBotta's glass-domed piazza, Futurism collection, Depero archive, twentieth-century Italian art
BolzanoSouth Tyrol Museum of ArchaeologyOtzi the Iceman, 5,300-year-old mummy, Copper Age kit complete, cold-chamber viewing
CanazeiUNESCOSass PordoiCable car to 2,950 m, Terrace of the Dolomites, Marmolada glacier view, Sella plateau
MeranoTrauttmansdorff Castle GardensEighty garden worlds, Sissi's castle, Touriseum museum, palms beneath the Alps
OrtiseiUNESCOSecedaDolomites ridge, sheer north face, Odle peaks, alpine meadows, summit cross
BressanoneHidden GemReifenstein CastleUntouched medieval interiors, original kitchen, woodcarved chapel, Bavarian log coffins