Fortresses
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Borgia Fortress
Aiello
Fortress
Varano
Fortress
The fortress was built between 1502-1503 on the initiative of Alessandro IV, ensuing the siege and conquest of the town and the slaughtering of Giulio Cesare da Varano and his three sons, in order to keep quiet the town which regreted the Varano dynasty.
The architect was Ludovico Clodio, responsable also for the later fortress of Gallera in Bologna commissioned by Giulio II.
The fortress was partially destroyed in the second half of the nineteenth century.
It still keeps two towers and the Mastio (the highest tower). A visit inside the mastio would be worthwhile.
The fortress was separated from the town by a precipice spanned by a draw-bridge. The gap was embanked in 1600 on a permit of Pope Clemente X, at the time bishop of Camerino.
On the inside ground, there are the remainings of the Franciscan convent of St.Pietro in Muralto which had been standing since 1300 and was enclosed in the fortress.
The Aiello
Fortress (today named
Vitalini Castle)
Little is given to know about this imposing castle, still inhabitated, placed on a hill overlooking the valley between Camerino and Castelraimondo. But what we know is enough and related to the people of great fortunes coming from the Da Varano family.
Gentile, soon after the passage of the Suevian troops, in 1260 built two towers linked by a half-interred gallery;
Giovanni, the resolute fortifier of Camerino lands and boundaries, fortified the towers in order to join them to the Intagliata (the fortification systhem built to defend the Dukedom) of which it became the most important part.
Rodolfo III, the very first unquestioned Lord of the castle, mentioned (1418) this tower surrounded by a few houses in his will.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, in a time of prosperity, Giulio Cesare, the greatest of the dinasty, added a palatium, a residential hall, to the towers (decorated in the same style of the castle of Beldiletto, as Conti noticed a century ago).
The castle was originally a property of the Massei family, then it was left in heritage to the Orphanage of Camerino. It was later purchased by Severio Bruschetti who completely transformed it in the first half of the nineteenth century. Today, the castle belongs to the
The road leading to the castle goes through Varano di Sotto, a small village not much altered since the time the castle was still in use.
Some of the houses date back to 1300. The little church of St.Antony stands on a rock. It holds a white-stone romanesque gate. At the back of the church the remainings of the Church of S.Giuliano are still recognizable.
The group of houses, dominated by the fortress, the symbol of the powerful and glorious dynasty, look rocky and harsh, overlooking the little valley of the S.Luca stream and the narrow Chienti valley.
The ruins bear traces of different ages. The fortress was turned into a farmhouses at the beginning of the present century and this helped to save it from ruin.
Rodolfo Gentile da Varano and his forerunners, the sixteenth-century nobles who have been living there now and then, always hold the possess of the fortress. When the Dukedom came to an end, the Apostolic House became the owner of the castle, then the Bandini family and more recently, the Municipality of Camerino. The opening for the draw-bridge, made on the rock is still visible. The entrance was directly through a defense tower.
The ogive entrance-gate, in white limestone, was oblique to the draw-bridge for obvious reasons of safety.
The square tower, today torn down, had various floors some with ceiling-beams and others with vaults, which were reached by a staircase built out of the wall.
An underground barrel-vaulted building, nowadays still imposing, was probably overlaid with rooms with side towers. It linked this side of the castle to the one facing the river separated by a wide courtyard. The low tower at the eastern corner( the merlons visible today are of a later time) and the recently restored building, which served as a farmhouse, are the few remainings of an imposing and great fortress, survived to the carelessness of men.
The arched gate leads to the castle wall on the slope's side.
