Gradara castle

Gradara Castle was begun by the De Grifo brothers and expanded by the Malatesta. Two concentric rings of walls were completed by the 14th century; the walls are about 700 m long, with 14 square towers. In 1463 Federico da Montefeltro defeated the Malatesta, after which the castle belonged to the Sforza of Pesaro, who made it more comfortable for Lucrezia Borgia, Giovanni Sforza's wife. The Della Rovere ruled until 1631, and the castle has belonged to the Italian state since 1928. It is linked to Dante through the story of Paolo and Francesca in Canto V of the "Inferno", although the identification of the "Camera di Francesca" is a fairly recent tradition.

You enter the village through the Porta dell'Orologio. The sentry walkways along the walls offer a panorama over the village, the valley and the Adriatic. On the tour you will see the Cortile d'Onore, the chapel with an altarpiece by Andrea Della Robbia, and several halls. Allow two to three hours.

Gradara is a member of “I borghi più belli d’Italia” and was named “Borgo dei Borghi” in 2018. Besides the castle, the walkways along the walls and the churches of San Giovanni Battista and SS. Sacramento are worth seeing; castle and village look especially atmospheric in the evening.