The impressive Fortress of Sassocorvaro stands out tall and majestic in front of us but it is only by a bird’s-eye view that it shows its secret nature. From above, in fact, the Fortress shows it was built in the shape of a tortoise. Connecting the hard shell of the animal and the building’s defensive function is inevitable, but a living creature hides under the rough shell: this is the key to really understand the Fortress. Designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, its round shape, meant to defend it from the balls of bombards, is an unprecedented novelty. And yet, in his Treatise Martini never mentioned the Fortress. Why? Sure, being a revolutionary work of his youth, it showed unavoidable limits but there is more to it: Martini never felt it as really being his own, as it was indeed Ottaviano degli Ubaldini who led its construction and left on it his unmistakable mark. A master of esoterism, astrology and alchemy, Ottaviano saw the Fortress as a stone book and carved on it his knowledge using a language initiates only could understand.
The whole architecture resounds with mysteries, the least detail hints at a symbolic meaning. After entering, one advances along an ascending path which mounts from the bright court up to the central tower and leads to the inner halls.
It is an initiation path. Wandering into the Fortress means learning and solving enigmas. Innumerable forks appear in front of us, esoteric signs are designed on architraves.
If welcoming fluttering ornaments end up with convex shapes, tjan the room is accessible to women, while if they end up with a point and penetrate the space men only are allowed in. Much room is dedicated to art, with a gallery of local painters and a charming little theatre set up in the former Main Hall. Preserving art appears to be the vocation of the Fortress, which during World War II became a shelter for paintings brought here from all over Italy by Pasquale Rotondi, an art historian and a hero, who saved them from the fury of the conflict. Reproductions of those works are on show into the Fortress, to eternally commemorate Rotondi’s endeavour.
Sassocorvaro