Sforza Castle, Milan in Italy

When talking about Italy during the Renaissance, we spend a lot of time examining art and literature and philosophy. We sometimes ignore the fact that the Renaissance was also a time of war. Lots and lots of war. As European princes collected power and Italian towns grew into wealthy city-states, powerful armies clashed in the name of God, political power, and sometimes just out of personal spite.
As a result, the art studios of the Renaissance often happen to be in the shadows of towering castles. This is nowhere truer than in the northern Italian city of Milan. As control of Milan was contested between the Milanese, other Italians, and Northern Europeans, war was frequent. Castles here were especially fortified, but none so well as the Sforza Castle. A product of Renaissance art and architecture made for Renaissance war, it's a stunning example of the complexity of Italian medieval life.

The Castle and the Visconti

The Sfroza Castle takes its name from a powerful family who lived there, but they weren't the structure's first inhabitants. The original castle of Milan was built in the mid 14th century by the Lord of Milan, the princely Galeazzo Visconti. While other cities in Italy were experimenting with the concept of a republic, Milan was more medieval, ruled by the powerful Visconti family.
After Galeazzo built the castle, later Visconti rulers expanded it, making it larger and more imposing. It was their palace, and a symbol of their power. Therefore, when their power fell, the castle fell with it. In 1447, the Lord of Milan died without an immediate heir. In the confusion as Spanish, German, and French nobles fought to assert their claims to the title, the people of Milan seized control and ousted the Visconti family entirely. They turned the Duchy of Milan into the Golden Ambrosian Republic, and the castle was largely destroyed.

The Sforza

The Golden Ambrosian Republic turned out to be a short experiment in representative government. As the city of Venice attacked Milan, a warlord named Francesco Sforza rose to power as the city's savior. Sforza's army defended Milan from the Venetians, but then he turned against the city and laid siege to it himself. Some see Sforza's action as a dramatic betrayal, but others give him a greater benefit of the doubt; the republic was floundering amidst various political rivalries.
Either way, Francesco Sforza got the city's senate to recognize him as the new Duke of Milan in 1450. The republic was over, and the Sforza dynasty had begun.
To symbolize his power, Sforza had the old Visconti castle rebuilt. However, Sforza wanted to be more than the medieval Visconti lords. He wanted to be a Renaissance prince, a man of sophistication as well as power. So, he hired a Florentine architect known as Filarete (Antonio di Pietro Averlino) to build his castle. Filarete was a true Renaissance artist. He was dedicated to philosophical ideals, a lover of antiquity, and devoted to his craft. In fact, he would later write a very important book detailing his vision for a philosophically ideal city, named the Sforzinda after his patron.
For the Sforza Castle, Filarete combined the aesthetics of early medieval Milan with 15th-century architectural theory. His most famous contribution to the structure is the Torre del Filarete, the massive central tower of the complex. Tower building was an important part of Renaissance architecture, as cities like Florence and Siena competed to build the tallest structures as symbols of their new engineering prowess. With Filarete's addition, Milan was now part of that competition.

Article and pictures taken from the site http://study.com/academy/lesson/sforza-castle-history-facts.html