Fortress of San Leo

Fortress of San Leo

 

Fortress of San Leo is a medieval citadel on the border between Romagna and Marche regions of Central Italy. The first military fortifications date back to the Romans. It was burned and rebuilt several nations including Goths, Byzantines, Franks and Lombards. Medieval Fortress of San Leo date back to the 14th century when a House of Malatesta constructed it. Subsequent generations increased and improved the complex. It is famous as a death place of Alessandro Cagliostro, 18th century occultist and adventurer.

 

History

City of art, which has always been the historical capital of the Duchy of Montefeltro, the prison of Felice Orsini and Cagliostro, San Leo was often the refuge of the king of Italy Berengario II, who was defeated in Pavia in 961.

A first fortification on the top of the mountain was built by the Romans. In the Middle Ages it was bitterly disputed by the Byzantines, Goths, Franks and Lombards. Between 961 and 963 Berengario II, the last king of the Kingdom of Italy by Otto I of Saxony, was besieged there. Around the middle of the 11th century the counts of Montecopiolo came to Montefeltro, the ancient name of San Leo, from which they took the name and title of counts. In the second half of the fourteenth century the Malatesta family managed to conquer the fortress, alternating in the dominion of the Montefeltro until the middle of the fifteenth century. In 1441 the very young Federico da Montefeltro was the author of an enterprising climb of the fort. To keep up with the new military techniques, he had the fortress rebuilt, entrusting the task to the Sienese engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini.

The new structure allowed a dynamic counter-offensive, ensuring crossed directions of fire. To guarantee this condition, the sides of the fortress were equipped with artillery and the access routes were made unreachable by enemy fire thanks to military outposts.

In 1502 Cesare Borgia, with the support of Pope Alexander VI, took possession of the fortress. On the death of the pope in 1503, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro resumed possession of his domains. In 1516 the Florentine troops, supported this time by Leo X and led by Antonio Ricasoli, entered the city and requisitioned the fort.

Until the devolution of the Duchy of Urbino to the Papal State in 1631, San Leo belonged to the Della Rovere family from 1527. With the new possession the use of the building passed from fortress to prison, whose cells were obtained in the military quarters. Among the inmates who were imprisoned there are the names of Felice Orsini and the Palermo adventurer Cagliostro. In 1906 the fortress ceased to be a prison and for eight years, until 1914, it housed a "company of discipline".

In united Italy, the municipality of San Leo was part of the Marche (province of Pesaro and Urbino) until 15 August 2009, when it was seconded together with six other municipalities in Alta Valmarecchia in implementation of the outcome of a referendum held on 17 and 18 December 2006. The Marches appealed to the Constitutional Court against the territorial variation, but this considered it unfounded.

Currently the rooms of the fortress house an arms museum and an art gallery.

 

Description

In the fortress there are two quite distinct parts: the keep, which with its square turrets and the Gothic entrance is the oldest part and the residential wing, the round towers and the hull wall with corbels that connects them. most recent. The two towers, the boundary wall and the keep also delimit the so-called parade ground.

The area is dotted with rocky peaks that rise turning the steepest walls towards the sea. On each of these peaks a fortress or the ruins of a fortress remind us of a tumultuous past; while the ancient parish churches temper the proud aspect of valleys and hills. To the visitor who arrives from the Romagna plain, the city-fortress is shielded by its huge shield of very high and smooth rock. To those who come down from the mountain it appears as a ship with a very high bow facing east, with a bell tower similar to a mast, and with its handful of different and crowded houses.