The oldest part of the Castle, originally a fortress erected on high ground, is the great Tower, from which it was possible to control a long stretch of the Po River (Cuneulus super Padum)
The oldest part of the Castle, originally a fortress erected on high ground, is the great Tower, from which it was possible to control a long stretch of the Po River (Cuneulus super Padum). It is believed to have been built by King Luitprand around 740 C.E., when Pavia was the capital of the Lombards. Its purpose was to serve as a fortress and a stronghold for the defence of the Po and the “Via di Monte Bardone”, which subsequently came to be known as the Via Francigena-Romea, connecting Northern Europe with Rome.
In 910 C.E., King Berengar I gave the Rocca, or fortress, to the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Saint Cristina, located just a few kilometres away, of which it became an integral part.
In 990, Sigeric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, travelling along the Via Francigena on his way back from Rome to Canterbury, designated the Abbey of Saint Cristina, with its Castle, as the 40th stopover (station) along that route.
Just outside the fortress to the north rises a tiny fortified hamlet, part of the castle complex and completely rebuilt in 1600. It consists of a complex of buildings whose entrance is protected by a moat, two watchtowers, and four defensive towers set outside the walls on the hamlet's far sides.
In 1251, the Abbot of the Abbey of Saint Cristina appointed a feudatory Lord to take stewardship of the Castle and the extensive lands associated with it. It did not take long after that for the Castle to become, beginning in the 13th century, one of the most important Lombard fiefdoms. It was ruled over by the Pusterla family until 1340, when they became involved in a conspiracy against the Visconti family and were ruthlessly exterminated.
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