Unforgettable Italy - Orsini-Odescalchi castle in Bracciano, by @papi.mati

As only one photo matters in this contest, please consider this one as my entry

For my entry this week, I'll present photos of Orsini-Odescalchi castle, located in Bracciano, near Rome. It's one of the biggest and best-maintained castles in Italy. Even though it was built in the XVth century, its history starts 400 years before.

In Xth, century the region was commonly attacked by the Saracens - Muslim warriors from Cyprus and Rhodes. To protect themselves, citizens built multiple defense towers in that area, one of them was located in Bracciano. Hundred years later, a family of Perfetti di Vico conquered the region and they changed the tower into the castle, although at that time it didn't look at all like now.

The current shape of the castle is the merit of the Orsini family, which started to rule in this region from the beginning of the XVth century. They were one of the most powerful people in Italy and they wanted to prove their power by building the castle bigger and more marvelous than anything else. The construction started in 1470 and just 11 years later the building was visited by pope Sixtus VI, who was looking for protection, running away from the plague in Rome. One of the rooms was rearranged to celebrate that event and called "Sala Papalina".

Building the castle ended in 1485 and since then it was changing its owner many times, mostly because of the conflict between Borgia and Colonna families, but even one of the popes, Alexander VI, was trying to attack the building hoping that he could make his own residence there. He failed, apparently even God's best friends lose the battles when they are too greedy.

Besides pope Sixtus VI, the castle hosted many other significant historical persons, like king Charles VIII of France, artists Antoniazzo Romano, and Taddeo Zuccari, who painted frescoes there.

The golden era for the castle was in the XVIth century when Paolo Giordano I Orsini has made the cultural center in it, inviting artists and writers from whole the region to it. Castle remained one of the most important cultural centers in Italy until 1696 when because of the financial problems had to be sold to Livio Odescalchi, nephew of Pope Innocent XI. It remains in Odescalchi's family's hands until today.

The castle is one of the most amazing examples of Renaissance military architecture in Italy. Of course, since the XVth century many renovations have been made, mostly related to the roof and frescoes, but the common structure remained untouched. Part of them, including the most popular, which presents Heracles, survived over 500 hundred years and can be admired by tourists even today.

In 1952 Prince Livio Odescalchi IV opened the museum in the castle. It contains many historical artifacts, artwork from the middle ages, paintings, historical furniture, books, decorations, and weapons.

As you may suspect, such a wonderful building was often used as the scenery in multiple movies. There is also a trend started by few famous people to get married here. Couples which said there "I do" in Orsini-Odescalchi castle include Tom Cruise with Katie Holmes, Eros Ramazzotti with Michelle Hunziker, and Petra Ecclestone with James Stunt. Renting the castle theoretically is possible to anyone but the price is understandably high, so only the richest can afford to do it.

All the photos included in this post belong to me and were shot with my old Samsung WB5500 camera during my trip to Rome (and around) in 2015.
To prepare this post, I was making the research on that page although all the publication is plagiarism-free, nothing was copied from there directly. It was fun, I have to admit, writing it allowed me to learn few new things about Italy.

Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati