Italy · Restored
Castello Brown
Castello Brown is a fortress-turned-villa on a rocky promontory above the harbour of Portofino in northern Italy. The site has hosted fortifications since Roman times and later became a Genoese coastal fort (Castello di San Giorgio) before conversion to a private residence and, eventually, a public museum.
First raised
1425
Its prime
1697
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1697
What Castello Brown looked like in its prime.
Perched on a rocky headland above Portofino harbour, the castle is a compact, roughly rectangular fortress of rough grey stone curtain walls rising from terraced slopes. A cylindrical tower anchors the seaward corner with a conical tiled roof; an attached multi-storey residential block with shuttered windows and small balconies adjoins the inner side of the walls. A flat battery terrace crowns the walls with parapets and embrasures for artillery, and steep wooded and terraced slopes descend to the harbour.
Its story
The story of Castello Brown.
A Genoese Fort at the Gulf of Tigullio, 1330–1431
Fortifications stood on the promontory above Portofino's harbour since Roman times, and traces of them survive beneath the present structure. By the 14th century a fort on the site was already worth fighting over: it withstood an attack by the Genoese Ghibelline admiral Aitone D'Oria in 1330. The earliest official record of the present castle dates to 1425, when Tomaso Fregoso, formerly doge of Genoa, occupied Portofino and its fortress in defiance of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan. Genoa recovered the position in 1430 through Francesco Spinola, and the fort — prized for its wide view over the town and the Gulf of Tigullio — beat off a Venetian fleet the following year.
Olgiato's Fortress and the Repelled Sieges, 1442–1697
By 1442 the castle held two bombards that fired stone cannonballs, and cannon batteries were added in the early 16th century, according to the Genoa Record Office. It was rebuilt into a full fortress between 1554 and 1557 to plans by Giovanni Maria Olgiato, engineer to King Charles V of Spain, extended on a new platform toward the harbour and armed against the Saracen pirate raids that had already struck Camogli, Recco and Rapallo.
The rebuilt fortress repelled an attack on the town by Giovanni Andrea Doria in 1575, and further works between 1622 and 1624 on what was now called the Castello di San Giorgio helped it see off another assault in 1664. By 1697 its arsenal ran to two half-cannon and fourteen other guns, together with fifty muskets, arquebuses, halberds and spears. Alongside Ventimiglia, it was one of two key coastal fortresses of the Republic of Genoa, its garrison commanded by a patrician castellano.
Napoleon's Garrison and the Fall of the Republic, 1797–1867
The Republic of Genoa fell in 1797, and the following year the castle's small tower was destroyed in an English attack on Napoleon's Ligurian Republic. Napoleon garrisoned the fortress and increased its armament to guard coastal shipping against the British fleet, which attacked again in March 1814 without success. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the castle was abandoned, and it was formally disarmed in 1867.
From Consul's Villa to Wartime Prison to Museum, 1867–1961
The disarmed fortress passed to the Yeats-Brown family, Timothy Yeats-Brown having already settled in Genoa after a spell at Portovenere, drawn there by the Romanticism of Byron and Shelley. His son Montague Yeats-Brown commissioned the architect Alfredo D'Andrade to convert the old fortress into a villa, planting two maritime pines on the terrace, formerly the gun battery, to mark his wedding. Guests at the villa included Lord Carnarvon, the Egyptologist associated with the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, and the German diplomat Baron Alfons Mumm von Schwarzenstein, who had bought and remodelled the neighbouring Villa di San Giorgio; both men remained friends of Yeats-Brown.
During the German occupation of Italy the villa was used as a prison for members of the Resistance. The Yeats-Brown family held the property until 1949, when it passed to Jocelyn and Lieutenant-Colonel John Baber, an English couple who restored several ruined sections; John Baber wrote a now-rare book on medieval Portofino, and Jocelyn researched the castle chapel, drawing on a complete 1607 inventory. In 1961 the Babers sold the castle to the City of Portofino, which has run it since as a public museum. It was the setting for Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel The Enchanted April, and scenes from the 1991 film adaptation were shot on location.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1697.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at Castello Brown, including 3 interiors: round tower (upper chamber), garrison quarters and sleeping area, castle chapel interior. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Castello Brown.
The families that held Castello Brown for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Yeats-Brown
Bought by the family of British consul Timothy Yeats-Brown after the fort's 1867 disarmament; held until 1949.
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