The 2015 excavations demonstrated that Rontana castle was founded by a rural community in the first half of the 10th century, in an area that had not been occupied by a permanent settlement (with the exception of a proto-historic use) prior to the medieval period. A parish church, with the same toponym, datable to the late 9th century is known, which also saw to the funerary needs of the neighbouring population. Several of the church’s walls emerged this season, together with part of the architectural decoration, similar to that of the parish church of Thò (Brisighella-Ra) of the same date, including a marble capital and several column drums of ammonitic red breccia from the Verona area, reused in the late medieval construction of the castle.
This season, four new excavation areas were opened inside the castle, on the summit of the site, which produced finds dating from the late 9th century to the final decade of the 16th century, when the castle was abandoned. The last inhabitants were the bandits of Rontana, the latrones, defeated by the Papal army in 1591. In 2012, another tower was identified in the opposite corner to the surviving one. It was discovered this year that a residential room with an elegant herringbone pattern brick floor, had been built within this ogival tower. This room was added to the castle towards the end of the 15th century, when the settlement was placed under an administrator of the Venetian Republic, in order to control the Lamone valley.
Excavations continued in the funerary area close to the courtyard. This season saw the beginning of a project in collaboration with the School of Medicine and the Department of Cultural Heritage to analyse the DNA of the medieval population from this territory and compare it with that of the present population of Brisighella. Samples were taken from two funerary cells in the cemetery of the church of S. Maria di Rontana, predating the construction of the castle, datable to a period between the end of the 13th century and the second half of the 14th century. On the opposite side of the castle, a floor make-up was removed in a rectangular room and the earliest phases of the church were found in this sector, but the excavation is still in an early stage. A new trench was opened in the productive/commercial area of the castle and the earliest structures were also uncovered here, with three residential rooms that were filled when the defences, attributed to Maghinardo Pagani, were built in the late 13th century. Two trenches were opened abutting the eastern curtain wall and in the area of the settlement, where a new house was identified with two parallel rooms, along a road that climbed the south side of the settlement and reached the summit area. During the coming campaign, trenches will be opened inside the castle and in the western part of the settlement in order to complete the picture of the fortified village, from its first occupation phases until its abandonment.