Castello Firmiano, whose name in German sounds like Sigmundskron, is a spacious castle with a network of fortifications located in the outskirts of Bolzano, the capital of South Tyrol. Today it houses one of the sections of the Mining Museum Messner (Мessner Мountain Mercure - MMM), founded by the famous Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner.

The first mention of the Castello Firmiano meet in a 945-year. Then he was known as the ant farm. In 1027, the year the Emperor Conrad II gave the castle to the ownership of the Bishop of Trento, and in the 12th century it passed into the possession of the ministeriales – representatives of small chivalry, which soon began to bear the name of Firmian. Around 1473, the year of the Tyrolean ruler Sigismund the Rich bought the castle and renamed it Sigmundskron and adapting it to bear firearms. From vintage ant farm to the present day survived only a few fragments, mostly located on the highest points of the area.

Due to financial difficulties Sigismund was forced to lay the castle, resulting in the structure gradually began to decline. At the end of the 18th century it belonged to the counts of Wolkenstein, and after them – until 1994-the year – counts the Toggenburg. It was the last owners of the Castello Firmiano in 1976, the year partially restored the ruined castle and opened a restaurant. And in 1996, the year the castle became the property of the province of Bolzano.

In the spring of 2003, after a long opposition Reinhold Messner received the castle in a long-term lease to accommodate the exposure of the Mining Museum. During the next restoration work in 2006-m to year on the territory of the Castello Firmiano was discovered the tomb of the Neolithic with a female skeleton, which, according to preliminary estimates, from 6 to 7 thousand years.