Castrocaro Terme Fortress

The impressive castle is considered by experts to be one of the most interesting examples of medieval fortified architecture.

At the point where the Montone valley gradually widens, to open out into the Forlì plain, the cliff of Castrocaro rises up, marked by the impressive fortress. For about a millennium, a fascinating and original panoramic subject has watched over the town below. Integrated with the landscape, the fortress seems to complete the design and structure of the cliff, with which it has become a single entity. Colors and materials have bonded together; the structural extensions, which followed one another in the centuries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, adapted the needs of war to the morphology of the land. The result was a unique combination in which the fortified architecture became inseparably linked to its surroundings. It is said that on certain nights wandering through the rooms of the castle, you can almost hear the cries of Margherita de Conti, who committed suicide for love on the eve of her wedding and let herself fall into the void from the highest tower of the castle.

The Castrocaro Fortress is composed of three distinct architectural and defensive structures: the Girone, the Rocca and the Medicean Arsenals. The visit starts from the Palazzo del Castellano where the Historical Museum of the Castle and the City is housed, with weapons, decorations, paintings, medieval and Renaissance majolica that tell the thousand-year history of the Fortress through the three periods of domination of the castle and the city. We descend then into the extraordinary and unique Medicean Arsenals of the Fortress of Castrocaro Terme, also known as “cannon housings”, which represented a novelty in the field of Renaissance fortified architecture. They are characterized externally by an enormous brick wall while inside, the space is divided into three vast rooms over 12 meters high. In one room is located a large and scenic fireplace with an oblique chimney, which makes the most of the ‘Venturi’ effect. We move then on towards the Enoteca dei Vini Pregiati Locali, where local fine wines are displayed (with the possibility of tasting and purchase them): they are the typical Romagna wines of local producers, Sangiovese, Albana, Trebbiano, Pagadebit Trebbiano, Pagadebit and Cagnina.

The visit ends outside, in the inner courtyard, the central point of the fortress, once used for the castle’s various service activities, and where musical and theatrical performances, animations and historical re-enactments are now organized. In the courtyard, you will find: the century-old olive tree from the 17th century with its extinct genome; the Church of St. Barbara, a delightful little sacred temple of harmonious proportions suggestively set in the rough architecture of the medieval fortification; the Tower of Dungeons and Torments, a gloomy and still sinister place where condemned prisoners of the distant past ended their days tortured by hunger and cold. From here, the view is priceless: to the north the castle of Montepoggiolo, to the east the nearby town of Forlì, and going even further, Ravenna and the blue Adriatic Sea. The internal courtyard opens onto the splendid panoramic terrace where the view of the Acquacheta Valley and Mount Falterona unfolds.