In 1495 (just three years after the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus) the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer passed through the Cembra Valley.
Albrecht Dürer (Nürnberg, 1471-1528) Self-portrait with gloves 1498, Madrid, El Prado Museum (detail) 1
In the autumn of that year he started a journey on foot (other times, those ones!) to Venice: so he went into Italy through the Brenner Pass, intending to cover the whole Adige Valley towards south. Unfortunately (but fortunately for us), when he arrived to Laghetti di Egna (Laag bei Neumarkt) he found that the roads were interrupted by the river flooding.
(Note: in the past such events were frequent, being the river without embankments and over-fed by its tributary Noce; now the overflows are practically warded off after it was built, near Rovereto, a shunt tunnel between Adige and the Garda lake.)
Dürer, who evidently wasn't a type to be easily discouraged, decided to go round the obstacle: so he went over the Rio Lauco defile, took the path that passed through Pochi di Salorno (Buchholz bei Salurn) and, after he went along the Saùch Pass and went beyond the Holy Lake, got down to Cembra. Via the Cantilaga bridge then he arrived to Segonzano.
Here the painter stopped a few days, staying at the Castle as a guest of the captain Georg von Ebenstein. In this period he immortalized the manor in two acquerellos.
The alternative way was already traced in the Roman era, and in the Middle Ages was known as “Semita Karoli”.
In recent times, thanks to the joined effort of the manageress of the Dürerhaus in Nürnberg, Dr. Jutta Tschöke, of the Municipalities of Egna and Salorno, of the Touristic Association of Salorno and of the Tourist Board of the Piné Plateau and Cembra Valley, the route covered in that journey has been put in efficiency and supplied with signs (see my picture by one of the cippi with the dürerian monogram.)
So, it became the destination of turists, excellent for pleasant walks and hikes; the path is known as the Dürer's trail (in Italian Sentiero del Dürer, often indicated with the German name Dürerweg.)
See the official site of the Dürer's trail (in Italian and German) and its section about the Castle of Segonzano.
Beyond the ones depicting the castle, Dürer dedicated to the Cembra Valley a few other acquerellos.
One of the most significant, known in Italy as Paesaggio alpino (Alpine landscape), or Colline italiane (Italian hills, original title: Wehlsch pirg) is kept at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
I hand over to Elio Antonelli: «[…] He drew with wide and quick brush-strokes the tableland of Faver, the hills that, beneath Cembra, slope down to the Avisio, the Ceramonte hill with the plateau of Prada. He drew the bell tower and some houses of Sevignano. In the centre, in vibrating contrast with all the rest, he depicted, with meticulous care, most of the Hill of Segonzano throbbing with life. Upwards in the right here are the pyramids, in the centre the church of the Holy Trinity and below among the hollows and the rows of vines Piazzo on the edge of the basin opened by the rio Regnana brook. At the left, over the dreamy plain of Venticcia, vanishing mists confuse the slopes of the mountains of Sover and in the distance, with golden halos the mountains of Fiemme: the Cugola and the Rocca. The little but exciting acquerello is kept in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, and its size is 21 x 31.2 cm (8.27 x 12.28 in).» (Segonzano e Sevignano page 124 [quotation translated by me].)
The picture below was taken about from the place where the painter put his easel:
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