Military garrison and Dalumi Palace

Land of important families

Walking down the stairs of Via 4 Novembre, you pass the military garrison, seat of the leaders of the Bagolino Militia, with a beautiful lion of St. Mark on the façade and the coats of arms of the Municipality of Bagolino and the Avogadro counts.
The two coats of arms are joined by a knotted cloth, used to represent a marriage (alliance) between two important families: this is because there had been an agreement between the two.
The Avogadro family, especially in the person of Pietro (1380-1473), arranged with other nobles and volunteers from Val Sabbia and Val Trompia the famous conspiracy of Gussago in 1426 with the result that Brescia passed to Venice, throwing off the Visconti yoke.
The Avogadro will be one of the very few non-Venetian families that will be able to participate in the “Maggior Consiglio” and, as leaders of the militias of the Trompia and Sabbia Valley, they will have the honour and the burden of defending the two valleys.
Bagolino in compliance with statute n. 90 (it was mandatory for every “fire” (family) to have at least one male armed and ready to intervene in case of need) could mobilize 100 men that were in charge of controlling the border with Tyrol, in case of contrasts with the Lodron, for the passage of foreign armies and help at the Anfo fortress.
Here is the agreement: Bagolino would lend his army to the Avogadro when they needed it, without having to maintain them in time of peace and, in turn, when the “city in the mountains” had to make requests to the Serenissima, the Avogadro, well accredited with it, would bypass bureaucracy and deliver the plea directly to the Council of Ten. All this took place with the approval of Venice, represented by the magnificent Lion of St. Mark, probably built after 1553.

Following the “kellnerites bagolinensis” and passing under the portico of the horses and the portico of “Vicolo del Fontanino”, we find the Palazzo Versa Dalumi on the opposite side.
In addition to the family coat of arms and the effigy of the Blessed Lucia, you can see the coat of arms of the Maritime Republic of Venice, since the building was built as the new municipal seat before 1481 and sold later to the Versa family.

An illustrious member of this family was Lucia Versa Dalumi, a young nun of the Order of the Servants of Mary, who founded a monastery in Bagolino dedicated to S. Maria delle Grazie, and who was later included among the blessed of the Order.
The monastery became a significant part of the religious and civil life of the community and, after its suppression, it was used as a school, a hospice for the needy, a military hospital, a nursing home for the elderly, a function it still holds today.
The Versa Dalumi family was one of the richest and most important in the Sabbia valley and disappeared in the fire of 1779, leaving Ursula, the only heir, married Materzanini in Vestone