For the first time in history, the Castelli di Cannero, on the Piedmont shore at the border with Switzerland, open to the public from Saturday, June 28th after an impressive restoration that lasted several years. The intervention commissioned by the Borromeo family has transformed the 15th-century lakeside fortress into a "museum of itself," where a cross-section of the territory's history and important national events also comes to life. The new multimedia museum enriches the cultural offering of the Terre Borromeo circuit and Lake Maggiore with a unique combination of history, architecture, and landscape.
Cannobio, June 12, 2025 – Starting Saturday, June 28, 2025, the Castelli di Cannero, iconic bastions of the Borromeo family on Lake Maggiore, will open to the public for the first time following a monumental conservative restoration and enhancement project. A project that lasted over a decade, returning to the community a place of extraordinary historical, architectural, and landscape value.
Located on two evocative rocky islets off the northern Piedmont coast, the ancient fortified complexes, which include the main fortress and the prison building, are reborn as a "museum of themselves." The restoration approach, curated by Studio Simonetti Architettura (Torino), was guided by deep respect for the ruin and the site's historical identity, avoiding any form of reconstruction that would have altered the structures' authenticity. The objective was to preserve the material and immaterial image of the fortress, making it part of the present without sacrificing its meanings and historical values.
The long recovery process, which the Borromeo property began planning in 2011, required substantial economic resources and an in-depth investigation campaign. The work was realized through an investment of approximately 15 million euros, with contributions from the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (Archaeological Superintendency for Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Biella, Novara, Verbano Cusio Ossola, and Vercelli) and Intesa Sanpaolo.
The Castelli di Cannero now assume a cultural position suspended in time and unique in its kind: after decades of abandonment, the building is reborn offering visitors the experience of landing. For 500 years what was an unapproachable place becomes a museum where visitors can retrace, through technology, the historical events of a fortress that was the theater of intricate warfare and important transformations through the centuries to today.
Documentary and archival studies, thematic research on the structures, and an archaeological campaign lasting almost four years have made it possible to reconstruct the monument's genesis and its historical transformations up to the complete restoration of the ruin. The fragility of the structures required lengthy consolidation and safety work to make it accessible to the public.
Vitaliano Borromeo, President of SAG, states: "With this important restoration work, the Castelli di Cannero return to being a living place, open to the community. More than five hundred years after the settlement by Ludovico Borromeo, the fortress can be enjoyed by visitors, enriching the cultural panorama of the Lake Maggiore territory and joining the other Terre Borromeo destinations."
Marina Borromeo, Head of Special Projects at Terre Borromeo, comments: "Today is a special day because the doors of an extraordinary place open where history comes alive, intertwining closely with the lake's panoramas and enhancing its charm. The result is a museum that is unique, for the type of intervention and recovery realized. The Castelli di Cannero complete our cultural offerings in an organic and coherent whole, the result of a process developed over the years in the Terre Borromeo sites."
The visit route, essential and developed almost entirely outdoors, allows access to the fortress spaces recovering most of the patrol routes. Some interior spaces host museological insights into the fortress's history, the territory, and its protagonists. The new structures, which include bookshop and services, evoke the temporary wooden structures of sieges, conceived as removable elements resting on existing structures, with larch wood finishes that harmonize with the fortress's stone material.
The visitor experience begins by reaching the castles by boat from the mainland. Inside, the architecture itself transforms into narration, making the site a true open-air museum. Making the experience even more engaging is the exhibition and narrative project by Dotdotdot (Milano), which transforms the visit into an immersive story thanks to a location-based audio guide, multimedia installations, augmented reality, and interactive games.
The Castelli di Cannero thus join the cultural offering of the Terre Borromeo circuit, which already includes Isola Bella, Isola Madre, Rocca di Angera, Parco Pallavicino, and Parco del Mottarone.
To visit the Castelli di Cannero, admission tickets are available on the website https://terreborromeo.it/ticket or at the ticket offices of Terre Borromeo museum sites and at the info point located in Stresa. The adult admission cost is 25 euros, including the boat tour from Cannero and the museum route audio guide.
TERRE BORROMEO
