Cristoforo Madruzzo, Bernadio Clesio’s successor, completed the castle’s upgrade to country villa and it then became a leisure home for the important members of the Counter reform council.
On the 13th of September 1545, for example, a delegation made up of papal representatives, Marcello Cervini, the cardinal from Santacroce, and Reginald Pole, a cardinal from England, arrived at the castle and described it as following, “it is a well decorated place with beautiful rooms all painted with gold and arranged and fabricated by the past cardinal Bernadio Clesio. It has three very comfortable apartments each with its own stove, bedroom and antechamber.”
So, the castle is no longer a fortress but a luxury home. This change in its use was eventually fatal as the finances and the prestigious political activity of the Bishop Prince’s court started to decline.
Castle Selva lost its role as an expensive holiday home and never again regained its place as the physical centre of the expression of centralized power. After this loss of power, the castle was quickly abandoned and the two centuries of history with the castle as a symbol of power started to decline incessantly.
