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.
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.
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.