Castello Ducale Orsini | FIANO ROMANO

Strategically built on a rocky spur at the dawn of the Middle Ages, Fiano presents the harmonious interweaving of the three elements of Italian castle architecture: walls, keep and palace.

On the fortification of mighty walls stand five rectangular towers to the north and, to the east, the deconsecrated Abbey of Santa Maria trans pontem.

It opens, to the west, Porta Capena, of typical Renaissance structure with round arch ashlar, with annexed rivellino, once equipped with a wooden drawbridge.

The current castle building is the result of structural changes over the centuries by Count Niccolò III Orsini who in 1493 enlarged the medieval fortress inherited from Orso and Elisabetta Orsini, adding the group residence in clear Renaissance style and the Duke of Fiano Marco Ottoboni, who, at the end of the seventeenth century, ended the castle by adding a rectangle wing overlooking Porta Capena and Via Roma.

The extreme defense and control of the fief were entrusted to the two towers whose shadow stood the palace: the smaller, quadrangular and escarpment that reinforces the southeast corner, adorned with the personal enterprise of Niccolò III Orsini (mastiff collar clenched between two sharp-pointed pierced hands representing the motto 'prius mori quam fidem fallere'- rather die than betray the faith); the second circular called 'Mastio', grafted into the squat formwork, thirty meters high and with walls about 2 thick,70 meters.

In the courtyard, the bellicose power of the Mastio is combined with the elegance of the double order of round arches surmounted by the white staircase that leads to the main floor of the Ursinea residence, softly set in the warm midday sun.