Ancient Hamlets of Portese Trevignane and San Giovanni del Montesello

The historic Church of San Giovanni in Portese with medieval masonry integrated into its boundary walls.

Storie del Garda – curated by Gian Pietro Brogiolo – text by Daria De Micheli

Portese – The Ancient Hamlets of Trevignane and San Giovanni del Montesello

The ancient hamlet of Trevignane is located opposite the current Church of San Giovanni in Portese (Fig 1). The village developed on a hill rising to an altitude of 122 meters above sea level and is bounded on three sides by la Valle, a semicircular depression. Toward the north, the slope is gentler and descends down to the church, around which there was a hamlet with houses called San Giovanni del Montesello, which plausibly formed part of the same property (Fig 2).

Trevignane and San Giovanni del Montesello (Fig 3) occupied a strategic position along the Roman and medieval road axes connecting the hilly hinterland of Garda with Scovolo and the port. Indeed, Portese, the name of the ancient municipality, probably derives from the adjective portuensis referring to the settlement or, perhaps even better, to the road which as late as 1831 was still called via del Porto.

The origin of Trevignane dates back to the Roman era, as suggested by the toponym deriving from the name of the landowner Trebinius. By the mid-14th century, it was a settlement (villa, a synonym for land or comunello) where olive trees were cultivated. The convent of the Religion of San Domenico of Toscolano owned a domus there in which the products of its lands were collected. Property was also held by the monasteries of San Salvatore of Brescia and San Benedetto of Leno, of far more ancient and illustrious origin, having been founded by Desiderio, the last King of the Lombards, in the 750s. In particular, the monastery of Leno was the owner of the Church of San Giovanni.

The analysis of tax registers and property transfers reveals a radical transformation in the social composition of the inhabitants between the 17th and 18th centuries:

In 1595, there were 14 houses and about 50 inhabitants. In 1656, the houses were reduced to 5. The drastic decline is probably attributable to the plague of 1630, which decimated the population and caused births to drop drastically; furthermore, the epidemic favored the concentration of property in the hands of rising non-local families in economic and social ascent, first and foremost the Orio family of Portese.

In 1720, the wealthy Veronese family de Bernini entered the scene, acquiring most of the lands and buildings during the 18th century. Their ‘casa dominicale’ (manor house) became the management center of the agricultural estate, equipped with presses and structures for the tenant farmers (Fig 4).

Trevignane casa dominicale de Bernini estate — The 18th-century de Bernini ‘casa dominicale’ in Trevignane overlooking its inner garden.

In the early 1800s, during the Napoleonic era, the Bernini family privatized local roads and enclosed the land with walls and monumental entrances. Other families also appeared in this period, such as the Franceschini and the Baccoli.

From an architectural standpoint, the surviving walls retain traces of medieval buildings with rusticated ashlar (12th–13th century), 15th-century brick portals, and 18th-century vertical extensions.

A few hundred meters from Trevignane there also existed a settlement called San Giovanni di Montesello, closely linked to the church of the same name, which in 1388 depended on the monastery of Leno. Like Trevignane, San Giovanni also saw the co-presence of various religious bodies, including the monastery of Santa Giulia of Brescia.

Unlike Trevignane, the demographic fate of San Giovanni was marked by an inexorable decline: in 1595 it counted 8 houses, falling to 5 in 1656 and to just 2 in 1720. By 1810, the settlement had effectively disappeared, leaving space exclusively for agricultural land owned by the Conter and Alberti families.

While Trevignane survived as a hamlet dominated by the Bernini, San Giovanni vanished as a settlement, leaving only the church as a point of reference for the community of Portese, which eventually absorbed these localities into its administrative jurisdiction.

The only surviving ancient structure is the current rectory, built by the Municipality of Portese for the priests of the church. This was renovated into its present form in 1585, a date engraved—ten years after its consecration—on a stone tablet embedded in the facade.

Sources: Alle origini di Portese – Quaderni dell’Archivio di Comunità di San Felice del Benaco – Gian Pietro Brogiolo