+ La Torraccia +

La Torraccia South of the United Rivers, in the countryside between Classe and the sea, near the historic pine forest of Classe, there is the remnant of what is traditionally called "the Torraccia". This is what remains of the coastal watchtower which, at the time of construction, was located at the active port entrance south of Ravenna called Candiano. This port was built in medieval times at the mouth of a watercourse called Candiano which connected the sea to the northern end of the Candiana valley (later called Standiana), the great swamp upstream of the Classe pine forest, whose reclamation was completed only in the last century. The portus Candianifu strengthened in the fifteenth century during the Venetian domination; in 1612 the papal legate Bonifacio Gaetani promoted new excavation works, obtaining the gratitude of the people of Ravenna with the column erected in his honor near the port, which today is located in piazza dell’Aquila. An even more significant intervention, however, was the one that was carried out a few decades later, between 1652 and 1654, by Cardinal Stefano Donghi. He had a canal dug, called "Panfilio" in honor of Pope Innocenzo X Pamphili, who, after breaking away from the course of the old Candiano, passed through the pine forest next to the ancient basilica of S. Maria in Porto and along the last stretch of the 'current via Cesarea, ended in a dock a few tens of meters from the walls of Ravenna. The order of construction of the tower of the Candiano port, popularly known as Turaza (Torraccia or Torrazza), would have been given by the cardinal legate Paolo Savelli who governed Romagna for a few months in 1667. The project was entrusted to the architect Pietro Azzoni, who he presented it on 29 August 1669; the structure was probably completed in 1670. With a brief of 5 December 1671 by Pope Clement X, the Cavalli family was invested with it, who took possession of it in August 1672, enjoying the collection of duties and gifts on port traffic. The tower, built near the simple structures of the Candiano port, housed a garrison of infantry and knights who carried out control functions on the coast, preventing unwanted landings and reporting suspicious or enemy boats to the coastal defense system. In numerous documents it is then referred to as the Sanità tower, for the sanitary control that was carried out on the crews of boats bound for the city, to avoid the spread of epidemics. In a short time, the Cavalli family began the construction of a tavern to supply the boats with food and everything necessary, thus sparking a long dispute with the Abbey of Porto, owner of the land, immediately opposed to the Cavalli investiture. Towards 1730, with the diversion of Ronco and Montone to remove the constant threat of rivers from the city, the new course of the United Rivers ended by intersecting the route of the Panfilio canal. The inevitable abandonment of the old Candiano port and the transfer of the investor Cavalli to the new Corsini canal north of Ravenna, determined the rapid and inexorable deterioration of the fortress structure, also subject to stripping for the recovery of building material. The constant advancement of the coast line and the land reclamation works quickly erased any sign of the original functionality of the building, so much so that in the second half of the nineteenth century the tower appeared isolated within the pine forest and already partly in ruins.