Rocca Maggiore

The Rocca Maggiore is a castle which dominated, for more than eight hundred years, the citadel of Assisi and the valley of Tescio, constituting the most viable fortification for their defense.

The fortress

Description and history
Photo by Paolo Monti, 1967

You can reach the fortress on foot through the door Perlici, built in 1316: you can admire the walls in Assisi still intact which, in their long journey, engage the two fortresses, Major and Minor.

The interior

The first documented regarding the fortress date back to the 1173, when the German diplomat and Catholic Archbishop Christian of Mainz (1130 - 1183, chancellor of Germany during the reign of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, occupied Assisi on behalf of the sovereign who stayed there for a short time.[1]

The young future King of Sicily and Emperor Frederick II also lived there, entrusted by his mother Costanza d'Altavilla to the Duchess of Urslingen, wife of Duke of Spoleto and comes Assisi Corrado, confidant of the monarch Swabian.[2][3]
Queen Empress Constance returned to Sicily and then return to Assisi with the wife Henry VI: the baptism of Constantine was celebrated in Cathedral of San Rufino and was imposed the auspicious name (of the two grandparents) Frederick Roger.[4]

In 1198 the city passed to the Guelph of Pope Innocent III, and the people, causing extensive damage to the fortress, drove the imperial legate with Frederick, who was only four years. In that year Francis of Assisi was sixteen.[5]

The fortress will be reconstructed, in respect of the medieval, in 1356, the initiative of Cardinal Albornoz (1310 - 1367), commissioned by Innocent VI by Avignon, to strengthen the fortifications of the Papal.

In 1458, the captain Perugia and Lord of Assisi Jacopo Piccinino (1423 - 1465 built the polygonal tower north -occidentale, then finish made by Pope Pius II, and connected to the rest of the walls of a corridor equipped and strengthened. The complex consists of a fortress walls, built with the pink stone of Mount Subasio, trapezoidal, with towers at each corner, which includes square formwork, renovated in 1478 by Sixtus V, on which stands the mighty keep.[6]

To the inside of the fortress (where, in 1972, some scenes of the movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", directed by Franco Zeffirelli keep.[7])leads to the entrance of the round bastion, commissioned in 1535 by Paul III : you come, then, to the large fenced yard, where once there were the rooms of service, and the male, former home of the castle, divided into four rooms accessible by a spiral staircase.[8]

The Rocca Maggiore joins, through the fourteenth century walls, with its fortress Minor, or stronghold or keep of St. Anthony, commissioned by Albornoz in order to consolidate, to the mountain, that part of fortification.[9]

  • Federico II, young
  • The fortress, at night
  • View of the fortress
  • The entrance
  • The enclosed courtyard
  • the tower
  • The fortress Minor

Note
  1. Amoni, p. 50
  2. Amoni, p. 51
  3. Masson, p. 10
  4. Umbria, p. 310
  5. Masson, p. 12
  6. Umbria, p. 311
  7. Amoni, p. 51
  8. Umbria, p.311
  9. Amoni, p. 50

Bibliography
  • AA. VV., Umbria , the Italian Touring Club, Perugia 2004.
  • Daniel Amoni, Castles, Fortresses and Castles of Umbria, Quattroemme, Perugia 1999.
  • Georgina Masson, Frederick II , Rusconi, Milan 1978.
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See also

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