Palace of the Fiemme Magnificent Community

to the village center of Cavalese rises the palace of the Magnificent Community with short courtyard protected by a crenellated wall. The building has a façade richly frescoed. Above the Line of the windows are depicted 19 coats of arms of many bishops and above still, six historical characters alternate frames to ornate. In addition to the seat of the Magnificent Community, was the summer residence of the prince bishops of Trento and residence of their vicars and captains.

The Palace is presented as a museum space among the most dynamic and elegant, with a Museum and Art Gallery and the historical archive. The guided tours reveal every secret kept from the ancient walls. In prisons visitors may challenge the torches to illuminate the inscriptions engraved by prisoners. Depict actions, thoughts, memories. These cells, in '500, were also the cruel gattabuie of the so called witches of Cavalese.

Until 2 April 2018, in the palace of the Magnificent you can visit the exhibition "Wood. Soul di Fiemme" that analyzes this natural element from different points of view: the botanic, that historical, social and artistic, between inspirations of the painting school Fiemmese and gestures of contemporary artists.

The Magnificent Community of Fiemme was a Vicinia whose territory stretched, beyond which properly in Val di Fiemme, also in part in the Val di Fassa and in South Tyrol. The current and the homonymous mountain community comprises the municipalities of Moena, Predazzo, Ziano, Panchià, Tesero, Cavalese, Varena, Daiano, Carano Castello-Molina di Fiemme, Trodena (Bz). The museum preserves the parchment note of "Enriciano privilege", with which the Prince Bishop Henry III confirmed the rights and the autonomy to the Community. On the frescoed facade, it is also clearly visible the coat of arms of the community - six white bands surmounted by a cross - granted in 1588 by Bishop Lodovico Madruzzo.

The attachment of the population of the Valle di Fiemme to its own territory and rooted propensity to self-government have in fact an authoritative foundation in the great community of the Val di Fiemme", an institution that dates back to the XII century, to which the bishop of Trento recognizes an administrative autonomy.

In the course of the centuries, the Community, a sort of Republic rustica, manages to defend its autonomy and its properties against all external interference. The valley is divided into "rules" which collect the villages of the valley, whose representatives elect every year the Scario (longobard word that means "head of the heavenly"), or the president of the Community. The institution manages assets of the territory, woods, pastures, meadows and grazing livestock, hunting and fishing, by adopting a system of rotation of Longobard heritage; but also nullifies the legal issues and disputes that were discussed in what is still called "Banco de la Reson", at the center of the Parish Park in Cavalese.

The privileges of the Magnificent Community of Fiemme are in fact abolished by the Bavarian Government in 1807. Lost its function secular political-administrative, after a series of changes in the Statute, the Magnificent Community remains however an institution still operating today in the management of the immense forests of the valley, is important not only for the correct forestry, but also for the preservation of the historical identity, social and cultural life of the valley.

Opening hours: 10-12 and 15-18.30.
Guided tours for a minimum of 6 persons.