Official website for tourism in the Aosta Valley
The castle was built in 1095 by Gerardo de Bocha, local Lord who owned all the feudal justice rights, as well as the property of the mill, the market and the perception of duties.
The present three-storey building with rectangular floor probably dates back to the XV century; the inside was restored and can be visited when exhibitions and events take place in it.
Located over Saint Léonard, in the hamlet of Chez-Vuillen, the building is characterized by a cylindric tower with a spiral staircase in carved stone inside.
Beside the house, which seems to date back to the XIV century, there is a fountain with the coat of arms of the Savin de Bosses counts.
The parish church of Bosses, dedicated to St. Leonard, located near the castle, dates from 1861-1862 and was built, on the remains of the old chapel of St. Leonard, in the neo-Gothic style. It is one of the earliest examples of neo-Gothic architecture in the Aosta Valley.
The walls are decorated with frescoes painted in 1862 by Ivrea painter Giuseppe Stornone. Also of special value is the 18th-century carved and gilded altar placed in the right side chapel.
The parish church of Saint-Rhémy was built in 1784 on foundations from the early Christian era and was frescoed by the Stornone brothers from Ivrea, in 1898. The canvas depicting the Madonna surrounded by angels and San Remigio, patron saint of the locality, located inside the precious high altar in carved, painted and partly gilded wood, in Baroque style, is also the work of these painters.
The liturgical furnishings are almost all older than the church itself.
The medieval villages of Etroubles and Saint-Rhemy are joined together on the Roman road that from the city of Aosta climbs up the mountainside of the Pennine Alps (Alpis Poenina), towards the Valais and northern Europe.
Like a “picket” on the path, the parish church’s belltower dominates these characteristic architectural complexes, village roads built following a main circulation axis, at the convergence of 2 rivers and in correspondence to the bridges.The secondary roads or axis reached the mills and forges.
The village homes show their beautiful facades which open onto great entrances, on the main road; the main doorways lead towards internal courtyards or towards long hallways, with indoor stairways that take to all the rooms of the great stone house that once had stables and haylofts.The date of construction and initials of the great builders are engraved on the architraves or forged onto wrought-iron gates.
In the past, these groups of homes had a so-called franchise that attributed the function of “marronniers” to the inhabitants (guides for the Great St. Bernard pass, in winter and in the summer) and were used as hospices, boundary walls, guarded by night watchmen and closed during the nights.
The Via Francigena, up until the Middle Ages the only connecting road between Italy and England, passes through Saint-Rhémy and Étroubles. In fact, it is the main road of these villages and was travelled on foot, horseback or mule in order to reach Rome from Gran San Bernardo Hill.
