Cagliostro's fortress
In the Valmarecchia, inland from Rimini, on top of a gigantic block of limestone with vertical walls, the village of San Leo and its fortress form one of the most spectacular sights in Italy. The rock, reachable by a single road carved into the cliff, has been a natural stronghold since ancient times: it was the capital of the Montefeltro, the land that gave its name to the dukes of Urbino, and in the tenth century, for a short time, the seat of King Berengar II of Italy. Dante mentioned it in the Purgatorio, and Machiavelli considered it the best fortress in Italy. The present fortress was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by the great military architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini for Federico da Montefeltro, with massive round towers adapted to the new firearms.
Under the papacy, from the seventeenth century, the fortress became a feared prison. Its most famous prisoner was Count Cagliostro, the Sicilian adventurer, alchemist, healer and freemason Giuseppe Balsamo, who was condemned by the Inquisition and locked up here in 1791, in a cell called the "pozzetto", the little well, whose only access was a trapdoor in the ceiling, with a small window from which he could see the two churches of the village; he died here in 1795. The village, small and charming, has two Romanesque masterpieces: the Pieve, of pre-Romanesque origin, and the Cathedral of 1173, in sandstone. According to tradition, the village was founded by Saint Leo, a Dalmatian stonemason who came here in the fourth century with Saint Marinus, the founder of San Marino.
Tip: the fortress houses a museum and Cagliostro's cell; from the walls, the view sweeps over the Montefeltro and San Marino.
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