Cly castle
Aosta Valley, Italy
Cly castle ruins
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Coordinates	45°44′57″N 7°33′37″E / 45.749302°N 7.560353°E / 45.749302; 7.560353
Height	2520 ft.
Site information
Controlled by	Municipality of Saint-Denis
Site history
Built	1207
Built by	Challant family

Cly is a castle in the Italian town of Saint-Denis, overlooking the Dora Baltea (French: Doire baltée) river, in Aosta Valley, northwest Italy. It belongs to the so-called primitive style of castle, consisting of a keep with a surrounding wall. The ruins rise from a bed of metamorphic rock, on the edge of a fault line which extends to the Castle of Quart.^[1]

History

Cly was first mentioned in a document from 1207, in which the "chapel sancti Mauricij (Saint Maurice) de castro Cliuo" is mentioned among the goods of the Vicarage of Saint-Gilles in Verrès,^[2] but the keep has been dated to 1027 using an analysis of the tree rings in its timbers (dendrochronology). Originally a fief held from the Counts of Savoy, in 1376 the direct ownership passed to the Duchy of Savoy, which installed a castellan to administer it for them until abandoned in 1550. The castle fell to ruins in the centuries that followed.^[3]

The castle today

Eventually the castle ruins became the property of the nearby town of Saint-Denis. The castle is visible atop the hill overlooking the town of Chambave.^[4] The castle is open to guided tours only in July and August. In addition to Cly, there are about 150 medieval castles, towers and fortified houses in the Aosta Valley.^[5]