Opening hours / Our location / Contacts / Events / History / Staff / Documents

OPENING HOURS	TICKET
Saturday 10am-1pm Sunday: 10am-1pm and 4pm-7pm	€5 general admission €3 reduced-price ticket other discounts

OUR LOCATION	CONTACTS
Via Alla Fortezza, snc 19038 Sarzana SP	drm-lig.museobalzirossi@cultura.gov.it +39 0187 622080
	DIRECTIONS AND PARKING ACCESSIBILITY

HISTORY

The Castruccio Castracani fortress stands on the top of the Sarzanello hill, overlooking the medieval city of Sarzana and the plain of Val di Magra, during the Middle Ages, pilgrims and wayfarers passed through the Via Francigena on their way to Rome. This incredible structure is still being used today for military trainings, but is mainly a place for private and cultural events. 

The first part of the fortification, built for military purposes, was mentioned in a diploma of Emperor Otto I in the Codex Pelavicino of 963, and it was constituted by a fenced complex of buildings including houses, a granary, a military tower and a bishop’s palace with a loggia; its life was closely linked to the lives of the Bishops-Counts of Luni.

The people of Lucca imposed their influence on the territory of Sarzana, they were led by the leader and politician Castruccio Castracani d’Antelminelli who lived in the castle of Sarzanello between ca. 1317 and 1328. 

A war fought in Sarzana between 1484 and 1487 was decisive for the fate of the fortified building on the hill of Sarzanello: in those years Lorenzo the Magnificent decided to transform the city into a fortified outpost in defence of the Florentine lordship, renovating the Fortress of Firmafede and and decides to erect an imposing fortress on the Sarzanello hill exactly where the episcopal settlement stood, entrusts the work to Francesco di Giovanni known as il Francione. 

In 1494 Piero dei Medici handed Sarzana and Sarzanello to Charles VIII, but the fortress was still incomplete and was completed in the 1500s when it came into possession of the Banco di San Giorgio. 

The Sarzanello Fortress seen from above has a rhomboidal shape due to the particular triangular walls equipped with towers at the top and the massive construction protecting the entrance called ravelin. 

The structure, delimited by a moat in which the presence of water was not foreseen at the time, in the centre presents the keep, that is a large tower inside which the captain of the troops usually lived: this is internally made up of four floors with a walkway at the apex, in addition to the various service areas useful for everyday life (kitchen, bedroom, etc.). 

In the lower part there are the prisons and the dungeons: the former were used more than for the imprisonment of enemies to educate the garrison in military discipline, the latter were a connection between the various positions for the guns, but also a cavity of safety for the curtain wall. 

The Fortress is under concession to the Municipality of Sarzana which takes care of the ticketing service and surveillance.  

DISCOVER LA FORTEZZA DI CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI on its official website

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DOCUMENTS

• Statuto – Fortezza di Castruccio Castracani
• Carta dei Servizi – Fortezza di Castruccio Castracani

DIRECTIONS AND PARKING
by train From Genoa. Take the train to Sarzana. Continue on foot for about 1.5 km (21min). Upon exiting the station, turn right into Viale XXI Luglio, turn right and take Via Luigi Neri.	by car A12 motorway: Genova – Livorno, Sarzana exit. Follow the tourist signs for “Fortress of Sarzanello” A15 motorway: Parma – La Spezia, take the A12 motorway towards Livorno, exit Sarzana. Follow the tourist signs for “Fortress of Sarzanello”

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