Gradara Castle

Gradara's fortress was built around 1150 by the De Grifo family. When the De Grifo fell out of papal favour, control passed to the Guelph condottiero Malatesta da Verucchio — known as "Mastin Vecchio", founder of the Malatesta dynasty of Rimini, Cesena and Pesaro. It was the Malatesta who ordered the two circuits of walls that still ring the castle, raised between the 13th and 14th centuries, the outer wall running for almost 800 metres.

Tradition places the castle's best-known story here around 1275, when Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, married his daughter Francesca to his ally Giovanni Malatesta, lord of Rimini, called "Gianciotto" for his lameness. Sent to present himself to Francesca in his stead was his brother Paolo, a courteous knight already married with two children. The pair fell in love; warned by a servant, Gianciotto caught them together and killed them both. Dante immortalised the pair in his Divine Comedy, fixing Gradara in literature as a symbol of tragic love.

In 1445 Galeazzo Malatesta agreed to sell Gradara to the condottiero Francesco Sforza for 20,000 gold florins. When Sforza arrived to take possession, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta refused to hand over the castle or return the money. Sforza, allied with Count Federico da Montefeltro, marched on Gradara in 1446 and besieged it with cannon, bombards and hand-guns for forty days; the fortress seemed close to falling, but bad weather and the approach of Malatesta reinforcements forced Sforza to withdraw, leaving Gradara in Sigismondo's hands.

Malatesta rule ended in 1463, when Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, excommunicated by Pope Pius II, was attacked by Federico da Montefeltro, who besieged Gradara on the Church's behalf. The fortress, which had withstood earlier attacks, surrendered, and the pope granted it in vicariate to the Sforza of Pesaro. Under Giovanni Sforza's lordship the castle was remodelled into a protected, secure residence for stately occasions.

Gradara later passed to the Borgia and Della Rovere families, following the fortunes of those houses across the papal territories of the Marche and Romagna. From 1641 it came under the direct control of the Papal States through papal legates, beginning a long decline; by 1920, when the Zanvettori family bought the fortress, the castle and its walls had been reduced to ruin.

Umberto Zanvettori funded a restoration — more interpretive than strictly historical — that returned the fortified village to something like its former state, and in 1928 the rocca was sold to the Italian state, with his widow retaining usufruct until 1983. Since December 2014 it has been managed by Italy's Ministry of Culture; it carries Italian national heritage designation and, recorded at 205,536 visitors in 2015, hosts museum, musical and artistic events.