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Ippolito Nievo (Padua 1831-Tyrrhenian Sea 1861) was a writer and a patriot. His mother’s mother, Ippolita di Colloredo, belonged to a Friulian noble family. Aged 14, the writer chose to be called Ippolito among a long list of names he had been christened with. At the time of Nievo, Friuli was still a land of castles, feudal traditions and strong contrast, something he extensively described in his masterpiece “Confessions of an Italian”. Beside the castle of Colloredo, his grandmother’s family also owned the castle of Fratta – his best-known literary site – by then actually a modest residence, more similar to a country manor than a castle, surrounded by weak walls.

This is the territory described in IPPOLITO NIEVO’s novel “Il Varmo”, which is set between Camino al Tagliamento (the place of residence of Nievo’s legal guardian, whose name Giavedoni was ironically similar to the name of the fish the miller’s wife was fond of) and Glaunicco (the mill described in the novel is now a restaurant). In Gorizzo, the Villa Colloredo Mels was the residence of poet ERMES DI COLLOREDO, who cherished this house a lot and praised the beauty of its park in his poems. The villa was also a place of frequent visits by IPPOLITO NIEVO as the guest of Elisabetta di Colloredo, the sister of his grandmother, and of her son Ermes Mainardi, an Italian patriot like him.