Top 7 Castles around Pontenure

Place of historical, touristic, architectural and cultural interest Via Castello, 6, 29019 San Giorgio Piacentino PC

Castello di Paderna, which has existed since the 11th century, was ceded in 1453 by the monks of the monastery of San Savino in Piacenza to the Marazzani family, whose descendants owned it. The complex has a trapezoidal structure surrounded by a moat that preserves the presence of water. Inside the moat, but isolated from the other buildings, is the keep, which has an independent entrance and was originally equipped with its own drawbridge.

Definitely worth it, there is a lot to explore, plan about 2 hours

The Castle, with a square base, surrounded by a large moat, the crenellated towers at the corners, a bulwark of defense for the Ghibellines in the fights for the dominion of Piacenza, is real, authentic; it has all the right history: bloody clashes, hanging of prisoners and conspirators, glorious episodes. A large moat surrounds the castle. It has a quadrangular plan with towers on the four corners, two cylindrical and two square. Built in stone and brick, the alternation of the two materials is exploited in a decorative key with the alternation of bands and the use of terracotta profiles on a stone background. The buildings make up three sides of the complex, the fourth is closed by a crenellated wall. The entrance was permitted by a drawbridge, traces of which remain above the still existing moat.

First mentioned in 1385, the fortress has a square structure characterized by an entrance with a drawbridge. There are three square towers on the tops and a keep, located at the entrance, where you can see the chains of the drawbridge. In the courtyard are the foundations of an old isolated tower, the last defensive bulwark of the structure.

The castle of Cerreto or Cereio, located between the Riglio and Chero rivers, is documented as belonging to Oberto Landi in 1385. Subsequently, during the battle of the Guelphs of Piacenza against the Dukes of Milan, the chronicler Musso of Piacenza confirmed the loyalty of the fortress of Cerreto in favor of the Visconti. The castle of Cerreto Landi has a rectangular plan with three projecting corner towers. In the keep, in the center of the main facade, there are two entrances, one for pedestrians and one for the ramp, once served by the drawbridge from which the seats of the bolzoni have been preserved. The grandeur of the south-east entrance and the presence of moats, together with the traces of an ancient isolated tower in the center of the courtyard, confirm the control function that Cerreto exercised over the communications network that connected the Piacenza Hill to the Via Emilia. In the stone and pebble walls, a classic structure of thirteenth-century buildings in Piacenza, there are more modern brick inserts, openings and verandas with round arches and some loopholes in the north-west tower.

Palazzo Farnese, built in the second half of the 1500s under the direction of the architect Jacopo Barozzi, known as Vignola. After various events, this imposing building - which hosted many homeless people during the Second World War - is now home to the City's Civic Museums. Inside, the Madonna adoring the Child with the infant Saint John (known as Botticelli's Tondo) in the Pinacoteca stand out; the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani, the room that more than any other exalts the Farnese family through pictorial representations; the curious Carriage Museum, one of the most prestigious in Italy on the subject; and the Archaeological Museum of the city and the territory which among its collections houses the famous Liver of Piacenza, an Etruscan find linked to the practices of the haruspic priests.

Palazzo Farnese was built in 1561 by the architect Jacopo Barozzi, linked to the Farnese family. Today the building houses the civic museums of the city of Piacenza and the State Archives (provincial headquarters).