Top 7 Castles around Torgiano

The Cassero di Porta di Sant'Angelo is one of the medieval gates of Perugia's walls, located in the Sant'Angelo district, at the end of Corso Garibaldi, adjacent to the Temple of Sant'Angelo. It's easy to reach by climbing through the streets of the university district.

The Cassero di Porta di Sant'Angelo is one of the medieval gates of the city walls of Perugia. It can be seen in the Gonfalone della Giustizia, a painting by Perugino (1496–1498) kept in the National Gallery of Umbria.

The Castle stands on a small hill, a short distance from the Chiascio River and along the borders that divided the territories of the Municipality of Assisi from those of Perugia. Built almost entirely of sandstone blocks, it still retains the clearly visible walls that mark its rectangular development, with corner towers. The entrance gate is protected by a mighty tower with turrets, on which the slots for the drawbridge's lowering are still clearly visible. The Castle was mentioned as early as 1114 in documents kept in the Archives of the Cathedral of Assisi. Due to its particular position, it was the scene of power struggles, which continued until the 15th century. In 1479, together with the Castles of Rocca Sant'Angelo, Mora and Beviglie, it was the subject of significant restoration work by the Municipality of Assisi. It can still be admired today in its original structure, only partially altered due to the partial transformation for residential use.

It is assumed that the tower, around which the castle of Tordandrea was later built, was built in 1297. Its name derives from the owner of the tower itself, Andrea. For defensive purposes, in 1431 the tower was fortified by creating a wall, obtained by unifying the external walls of the houses to connect them together until they became a single body, the castle body, which could only be accessed through the single portal, still existing, equipped with a drawbridge over the moat surrounding the castle.

ARCHITECTURAL STRATIFICATIONS Visiting this area of the Rocca, where Via Bagliona meets the shorter Via alla Piazza Gran-de, the complex and fascinating interplay between the remains of the medieval quarter and the structures of the papal fortress can be seen more clearly. The limestone and travertine walls of the ground floor of the medieval buildings, the pointed arches of the entrances to houses and shops and the base of Gentile Ba-glioni's tower blend with the brick vaults that cover the streets and the great foundation columns of the fortress. The old buildings were gutted and the underground chambers of the Rocca Paolina made. The destruction of a large part of the city and the construction of the Rocca in its place was a tearing wound for Perugia, which thus lost the quarter with its most elegant houses and the church of Santa Maria dei Servi, which housed many tombs of noble families and remarkable works of art. The keystone of its entrance is still visible. One of the frescoes by Benedetto Bonfigli (second half of the 15th century) in the chapel of the Palazzo dei Priori (now part of the National Gallery of Umbria) represents precisely this area of the medieval city and remains the most important evidence of how it was before the construction of the fortress.

ROCCA PAOLINA This underground structure, known as Rocca Paolina ("Pauline Fortress"), is the result of the building on buildings that took place in different eras. In the Middle Ages (12th-16th centuries) in this district stood the tower houses of some aristocratic Perugian families. In the 15th century the most important of these buildings belonged to the Baglioni family, the most powerful in Renaissance Perugia. In 1540, after the Salt War, which broke out following the rise in the price of salt and the refusal of Perugia to accept the rule of the Pope, Perugia lost its independence and was annexed to the Papal States. Pope Paul II had a fortress built to definitively subjugate the city and commissioned the architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to build it in this area, raising it above the medieval buildings. The fortress was called "Rocca Paolina" because Paul Ill ordered its construction. To speed up the works, which were completed in 1543, the fortress did not completely eliminate the existing buildings, but instead integrated them, preserving many parts (walls, corners, streets, arches), creating the effect of a practically unique underground city. The ancient road network, and in particular the long Via Bagliona that runs through the entire fortress, is still clearly visible today; in the Middle Ages these streets were of course open to the sky, and above the buildings rose tall towers, the instruments and symbols of power and prestige. Only one of the many towers that existed in the medieval city remains intact today in another area of the historic center, the Torre degli Sciri (or Torre degli Scalzi), but more or less considerable fragments can still be identified of about thirty of the forty towers remembered by tradition.

From the Partigiani car park, the big surprise! Escalators take you back a thousand years. You enter a medieval landscape with buildings and narrow streets that are as intact as they were centuries ago.

The Castle of Palazzo di Assisi was born in 1385 to defend the city of Assisi. Cambio (or Cagno), a feudal lord of Lombard origins, had this fortified village built with noble towers, his heirs (hence the name 'Castle of the sons of Cambio') later connected the towers with massive walls, those which today constitute the four corners of the quadrilateral village. The fort was thus able to play a role of considerable importance in the continuous wars between Perugia and nearby Assisi, becoming the last defensive bastion opposed to the Perugians before they could move towards Assisi without further obstacles. The castle stands in a once marshy area. Even today you can see the signs of the ancient drawbridge intact, symbol of a rich history of trade that passed through the Palace of Assisi. The lord of the castle "Cambiava" goods and coins, hence the name "Cambio".