The chessboard square and the living chess game
At the foot of the Asiago plateau, Marostica is a walled town dominated by two Scaliger castles: the Castello Inferiore, the lower castle, in the town, and the Castello Superiore, the upper castle, on the hill, connected by crenellated walls that climb the slope, almost two kilometres long. Built in the fourteenth century by the della Scala family of Verona, they give the town a fairy-tale appearance.
In front of the lower castle, the main square, Piazza degli Scacchi, has a paving in the shape of a giant chessboard. Here every two years, in September of even years, the famous Partita a Scacchi is played, a game of living chess with hundreds of characters in fifteenth century costume, horses, standard-bearers and musicians. It recalls a legend of 1454: two noblemen, Rinaldo d'Angarano and Vieri da Vallonara, fell in love with Lionora, daughter of the lord of the castle, and challenged each other to a duel; to avoid bloodshed, the lord decided that they would compete in a game of chess, the winner marrying his daughter and the loser her sister. The moves are announced in Venetian dialect. Marostica is also famous for its cherries, protected by a PGI and celebrated in late May and June.
Tip: tickets for the chess game sell out quickly; climb the path along the walls to the upper castle for a view over the plain.
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