Orsini-Odescalchi Castle (Italy)
Lazio See list of castles in Italia
The Castle of Bracciano (Lazio), also known as Castello Orsini-Odescalchi, is a fifteenth-century building consisting of three walls of the outer walls; pentagonal, has five towers, one for each vertex of the outer fortification. Cc The castle was built by Braccio da Montone (the family arms) then passed to Orsini militant in the arm forces, at the request of Pope Martin V (1418). It is currently owned by the Odescalchi family, who own the Orsini took over the lordship of Bracciano in the late seventeenth century.
The castle is open to the public in 1952 by Livio IV Odescalchi, it can be visited today and is often used for receptions, weddings and other private and cultural events.
The castle is set in 1470 around the old medieval fortress of the Prefects of Vico, dating from the thirteenth century on the orders of Napoleon Orsini, which is then completed by his son Gentil Virginio Orsini in 1485. In 1485 he was a guest of the Orsini family, the bishop of Mantua Ludovico Gonzaga, son of the Marquis of Mantua Ludovico III Gonzaga, who fled from Rome because of the plague [1] Throughout its history, the castle undergoes many changes from the initial design by Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
Pope Alexander VI in 1496 comes to seize the castle, animated by a deep resentment against the Orsini. In these years date the first decorations, among the most famous cycle of medieval woman illustrates the court life of the late Middle Ages and the fresco Antoniazzo Romano [2] that reproduces the triumph of Gentil Virginio Orsini, important page of this painter the fifteenth century.
Once the argument with the pope Orsini resume possession of the castle thus continuing the beautification and expansion of the castle. At the end of the sixteenth century Giacomo del Duca, a pupil of Michelangelo, made a series of speeches on the occasion of the sumptuous wedding of Isabella de 'Medici and Paolo Giordano Orsini. On that occasion the brothers Taddeo and Federico Zuccari were called to decorate some of the rooms, including one that in 1481 it housed Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere fleeing from the plague that was raging in Rome. The Zuccari, two of the most important artists of the late sixteenth century, realized the frescoes with the horoscope of the couple and the emblems of the two illustrious families.
In 1696 the Orsini Odescalchi entered the ancient family of Como origin, whose prestige will greatly increase as one of its members ascended the papal throne with the name of Innocent XI.