Bassano del Grappa — the convent that cradled three battalions
Bassano del Grappa is officially the “City of the Alpini”. One of the reasons lies in an old Poor Clares convent against the Visconti walls: the “Cimberle Ferrari” barracks, where three Alpini battalions were born.
From convent to barracks
The site is on the eastern side of the old town, against the 14th-century walls, between viale dei Martiri, viale delle Fosse, via Jacopo da Ponte and vicolo XX Settembre. The convent facing via Jacopo da Ponte was built from 1681; the church of Santa Chiara, consecrated in 1736, still stands. The Poor Clares had lived there since 1678.
Under Napoleon’s laws, in 1806, the convent became a barracks: first the garden, then the buildings. Around 1850 the main building was built against the walls on viale delle Fosse, used from time to time by units in the wars of independence.
Three battalions
In 1886 the “Val Brenta” Alpini Battalion arrived, formed in Turin in 1882 and transferred to the 6th Alpini: the command was here, while the companies were in Asiago, the 62nd and 63rd, and in Feltre, the 64th. In 1887 the battalion took the name of its depot town and became the “Bassano”, with the 62nd, 63rd and the new 74th.
In 1898, in a solemn ceremony, the barracks was named after Paolo Cimberle and Antonio Ferrari. Until 1914, when the “Monte Grappa” was built, it was Bassano’s main military site. Here in 1915 the territorial “Val Brenta” was re-formed and the “Sette Comuni” was created, whose three companies would become, from 1921 to 2002, the historic companies of the “Trento” Alpini Battalion.
Hospital, lying in state, prison
In the Great War the complex was a reserve military hospital, with about 400 beds for the wounded. In 1921 a chapel of rest was set up here for four unknown soldiers recovered on the Pasubio, the Grappa, the Ortigara and in Trentino, so that people could pay their respects; they were then taken to Aquileia, to the Cemetery of Heroes.
Between the wars it was again home to the “Bassano” and a mobilisation centre. In the Second World War it was a recruiting centre of the Italian Social Republic and, towards the end, a prison for partisans. After 1945 it remained a logistics annex of the “Monte Grappa”: in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, the clothing store of the “Julia” recruit training battalion.
Today’s building site
In 1984 the Municipality of Bassano bought it. For years the parade ground was a public car park and an open-air cinema; the oldest part, on via Jacopo da Ponte, has been restored for offices, associations and a senior centre. In the 1970s and 1980s the command building housed the “Generale Giardino” Alpini Group.
There was talk of a museum, never finished, and then of a new theatre. Today the parade ground and the area of the demolished main building are a building site.
Who were Cimberle and Ferrari
Paolo Cimberle, a Bersaglieri lieutenant, and Antonio Ferrari, an infantry officer, were from Bassano, like the soldiers Giovanni Battista Artuso and Bernardo Simioni. All four fell at Adwa on 1 March 1896. On what remains of the barracks façade, along the walls on viale delle Fosse, a plaque of 17 April 1898 still records their names, “fallen heroically at Abba Garima”, the height near Adwa where the Italian expeditionary force was defeated.
Sources of this story
The history of the barracks was told by our board member Oscar Colle in the series “Le caserme degli Alpini” of the Col Maòr, no. 4/2025, pp. 6-7. The aerial view at the top, published in the same issue, is by Bassanonet (19 November 2024).
Do you have memories or photographs of the “Cimberle Ferrari”, or of the “Monte Grappa”? Write to us: this page can grow.
