Similarly to any old manor house, the Castle of Spessa is able to subtly enchant even the least attentive visitor. This is not only because of the refined elegance permeating each building or because of the grandeur of the secular park, but also thanks to its thousand-year-old history, which is pregnant with meaningful events and personalities.

The origins of the Castle date back to the Roman time. In fact, the peculiar conformation of the territory where it was erected and the finding of some handmade articles of Roman origins give reasons to believe that a watch tower was built there already since the time of ancient Rome. Furthermore, the finding of pottery, roof tiles, melting scraps and even a well-preserved terracotta bell, which unfortunately got destroyed, witness the existence of an old furnace, just at the foot of the Castle, where exactly the Restaurant La Tavernetta is now located, whose old toponym was indeed Fornasate. Some historians have even assumed the existence of a Roman villa, as it may be indicated by the finding of a bi-colour floor mosaic and of some remains of a lead piping connected to a water pool, 270 meters far away.

The year 899 represents a turning point in the history of the Friulian manor house. The Magyars invaded the Friulian territories and following to the destruction they left behind, also the village of modern Capriva got destroyed, as well as any other surrounding ones. It was just thanks to the orders of the Patriarchs of Aquileia that the village was thoroughly rebuilt, enclosing some of the nearby Slavic peoples, who repopulated the entire area. Thus the origins of the toponym Capriva, which might derive from Kopriva, a word that meant “nettle” in the original dialect spoken by the settlers. The toponym Spessa, on the other hand quite likely represents the transformation of the original Latin expression silva spissa, indicating the local thriving vegetation of that period.

Some other historians identify the year 1200 A.D. circa with the foundation date of a building located on top of the hill, which might have been property of the Ungrispach family. This hypothesis is likely to find evidence in the Ungrispach's coat of arms, which was quartered in the Eck's one and was evidently engraved in the well located beside the stone fountain in the garden facing the residential halls.

Ever since the 15th Century the history of the manor house has been connected to the events in the town of Cormons and to the stronghold situated on top of the mountain Quarin. In 1359 residential feudatory, Andrea di Floyana, resident in the castle of Cormons made his will, which, besides being one of the oldest ones ever handed down to us, provides extremely relevant information about the hill of Spessa, possessed in agistment by the feudatory himself. Upon careful reading of the document, it appears that in those years not only did grapevines, but also olive trees and fruit trees grow luxuriant there.

A further document dated 1532 marks the history of the Castle effectively. It is the testament by Raimondo Dorimbergo, who claimed to have been enfeoffed with the feuds of Spessa and Gorizia by the archduke Carlo of Austria. Raimondo left to his daughter Dorotea the possession of the feud of Spessa, which she brought as a dowry to family Rassauer de Ratscha, coming from Ratschach, in the Carso high plain, by marrying Giuseppe Rassauer. From this marriage in 1547 Giovannina Rassauer was born. She got married to baron Adamo Smetcovitz, manservant of emperor Maximilian II, making the bond with the court of Vienna tighter and tighter. Once be became a widow, Giovanna consented to the proposal by Maximilian II of Austria to marry the count Sigismondo I della Torre, thus bringing along the feud of Spessa as her dowry.

Family Della Torre di Valsassina, even boasting illustrious ancestors such as Charlemagne was one of the most powerful families at the time, and they continuously had ownership of the Castle for over three-hundred years. Family Torriani had close relations with the Augsburgs, but they were also subdued to the authority of Venice, thus making Spessa one of the key players in the main political and war events of the time. For  instance, family Della Torre took part in the wars of Gradisca, also known as war of the Uscocchi, (1615-1617), where imperial troops fought against Venetian ones. Carlo VI della Torre, son of Sigismondo I, notwithstanding the fact that the Venetian government had recalled its feudatories for military service in favour of the Serenissima, decided to go to war supporting the Austrian government, fortunately without suffering any loss of territories.

In his will of 1607, drafted in the Castle of Spessa, Charles VI named his legitimate sons as his universal heir. His son Sigmund II, perhaps the quietest person of the Della Torre family, recognised his first-born Charles VII as the sole heir of his father's wealth. Nevertheless, he was the one who started the first of the three generations of domineering and murderous people that followed, hounded by the imperial and Venetian justice. The last of all the blood-thirsty people was Lucio della Torre who, in 1723, was publicly executed through a sentence signed by Emperor Charles VI of Augsburg, since he was the principal in his wife's murder and he had committed many other heinous crimes.