Castle Map

Fortress

Fortezza di Sarzanello

Italy

Heritage status
Italian national heritage
Location
Sarzana
Visitors
≈5,525 (2022)
Coordinates
44.11508°, 9.97116°
Links
OpenStreetMap · Wikimedia Commons
Open on the map →Official website ↗Wikipedia ↗
Fortezza di Sarzanello in Italy
Photo: Chabe01 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

The fortress of Sarzanello is a military fortification on the Sarzanello hill, near Sarzana, in province of La Spezia, Italy, above the Val di Magra. Since December 2014 it is managed by the Ministry of Culture.

The fortress has "three squat circular towers" that do not come up higher than the walls, a "central square tower, and a triangular protobastion". Two distinct building elements are visible:

the castle proper, the main part of the fortification, has a triangular plan with three bastions at the top; a huge ravelin in the form of a triangular fortified embankment opposite the castle, to which it is connected by a bridge.

Access to the fortress is by crossing the stone bridge, which crosses the wide and deep fortified moat.

As early as the 4th century Luni had begun declining, and its inhabitants began migrating to the surrounding hills for safety. This expanded existing villages and started new villages (Nicola, Ortonovo, Castelnuovo Magra, Ameglia); the Sarzanello hill itself was populated by exiles who settled there around the Bishop's residence. A military structure on the hill is mentioned for the first time in 963, in a document from the Emperor Otto I; it grants the possession of six castra, including that of "de Sarzano", to the Diocese of Luni.

Between 1076 and 1080 it is referenced as the curtis of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and in 1191 as the curtis of Henry VI.

Between 1314 and 1328 the imperial vicar Castruccio Castracani was plenipotentiary of the area; he supposedly was the model for Niccolò Machiavelli "Prince". Any changes he made to the structure can no longer be discerned. In 1421 the Genoese Tomaso Fregoso ordered changes and restorations to the fortress; more were done until the Florentines took over.

Lorenzo de' Medici had the city fortified and erected the citadel—after first destroying its predecessor—updating the structure for modern warfare. After having fortified the city, erecting the Fortezza Firmafede (the city's citadel), having previously destroyed it, the Medici decided to transform the old fortress on the hill and adapt it to the new war needs. The architects Francesco di Giovanni and Luca del Caprina designed the new structure which completely replaced the previous one. It was not yet finished when in 1494, two years after the death of Lorenzo, his son Piero the Unfortunate handed it over to the French.

Text adapted from “Fortress of Sarzanello” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the rankings

Fortezza di Sarzanello ranks #7,235 of 9,902 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #505 of the 624 mapped in Italy. Wikidata records about 5,525 visitors in 2022. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. It is one of the 52 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Tuscany. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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