The Rocca di Ostia or Castello di Giulio II by DRONE - Ostia Antica Italy - ECTV
The Rocca di Ostia, or Castle of Julius II, is a medieval fort located at the southwestern end of the village of Ostia Antica, in the municipal territory of Rome. The site is owned by the Ministry of Culture and is managed by the Archaeological Park of Ostia Antica.
After the fall from grace of Ostia the few remaining inhabitants moved to what became Gregoriopoli, a village fortified by Gregory IV near the mouth of the Tiber.
Pope Martin V between 1423 and 1424 had a circular tower erected, surrounded by a moat, to watch over the stretch of river near the salt pans in order to protect commercial traffic and therefore equipped as a papal customs, while between 1461 and 1483 Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville had the walls of the village reinforced and expanded.
The construction of the castle itself began in 1483 at the behest of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, future pope with the name of Julius II, in order to strengthen the coastal protection of Rome and at the same time ensure the food supply. [1] The project was most likely assigned to the Florentine architect Baccio Pontelli although Giorgio Vasari, in his Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, attributed the project to Giuliano da Sangallo,[2] while other historians have hypothesized the name of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, while not denying that Pontelli may have directed the work. [3]
The new construction incorporated the tower of Martin V and a papal apartment was also added on the western side. Of particular value is the monumental staircase, frescoed by Baldassarre Peruzzi with mythological scenes related to the character of Hercules. [4]
The decline of the structure began in 1556 when during a siege directed by the Duke of Alba Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the castle suffered serious damage, and was definitively abandoned in 1557, when a disastrous flood definitively diverted the path of the river and transformed the surrounding areas into unhealthy swamps. The customs function was then assumed first by tor Boacciana and finally by tor San Michele. During the nineteenth century it was used as a prison for criminals sentenced to forced labor and employed at that time in the first archaeological excavations of Ostia. [5]
The fort has a triangular plan with three towers at the vertices, two of which are circular and one polygonal of greater size (tower of Martin V) connected by a single patrol path. The fort was originally surrounded by a moat fed by the Tiber.
The walls are completely made of brick, low but thick and inclined to reduce damage from perpendicular impact of siege machine bullets. The artillery positions are composed of openings called thrones placed in the gorge between the patrol path and the curtain wall, in a position also very close to the ground. [6]
These characteristics make it an important example among the transitional fortresses of the late fifteenth century, towards the affirmation of the fortification to the modern. [7]