THE ARAGONESE CASTLE: AN ANCIENT FORTRESS UNDER A SQUARE  

 

The Aragonese Castle of Sassari was built around 1331.
Once it stood majestically in the center of the city, with five towers at its corners and one in the center of the front of the castle, accessible through a door to the south that led to the historical center of Sassari. 
Over the centuries, the structure of the moat was reinforced with the construction of a fortified tower also called "barbacane", with underground passages and embrasures for shooting from a protected position facing toward the town.

Archaeological excavations have brought to light the entire structure, consisting of two overlapping corridors about 80 meters long. The lower one has twenty-six embrasures made for medieval handguns. The structure probably remained in use until the end of the sixteenth century, when the castle lost its military function, and lost its defensive purpose at the end of the eighteenth century. During the excavations in Piazza Castello, a small bell shaped room was found carved into the rock, perhaps originally a silo of the Castle, utilized as a prison in the first period of the Inquisition.

Fonte: Turismo Sassari

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