Forte Michelangelo - The Work Of Renaissance Masters

The pretty seaside town of Civitavecchia, Lazio, is located along the coastline of the Tyrrhenian Sea and is located just an hour and a half from Rome. It has Etruscan origins and its name means “Ancient Town”. Due to this long and rich history, it is dotted with beautiful buildings and interesting monuments from many different periods throughout history. From the sixteenth century, there is perhaps the most striking and obvious of all the sights in the whole town, Forte Michelangelo. This impressive fortification towers over the rest of the port and is the work of three of the most famous Italian architects of the Renaissance. Find a holiday rental in Lazio and spend a day wandering the town of Civitavecchia and this feat of Italian architecture.

After a period of looting, fires and massacres which affected the town at the end of the 1400s and due to the constant threat of pirates that infested the surrounding seas, Giulio II della Rovere (who later became Pope Julius II in 1503) realised that Civitavecchia needed an efficient means by which to defend the port. It was decided to arm the city with a fortress which would defend the port and provide somewhere for its citizens to go during attacks, instead of having to flee to the nearby mountains. The fort was built on the ruins of Ancient Roman barracks and Bramante, that great master of architecture, was commissioned to undertake the job. Sadly, he died in 1514, long before he could see his design come to fruition.

The work continued under the direction of his two pupils Giuliano Leno and Antonio da Sangallo, another very famous architect. It was completed in 1535 under the pontifical reign of another great Pope, Paul III of Farnese.

The upper part of the Donjon still had to be completed, however, and Michelangelo, the most famous of all the names involved in the project and for whom it was later named, stepped in to design them.

Forte Michelangelo is built on a quadrilateral plan with four great turrets at the corners and an octagonal shaped donjon.

Faced in travertine, with unbelievably thick walls, and beyond vast in size, it gleams next to the ocean as an intimidating and impressive landmark.

The views it offers are also stunning and it is well worth a visit, should you find yourself in Lazio.