OTRANTO'S CASTLE
Otranto’s castle is one of the boasts of the city and of the region of Puglia. Built by Ferdinando I of Aragon between 1485 and 1498, the castle has been conceived by Ciro Ciri with the advice of Francesco of Giorgio Martini.
Once, in “Piazza castello” , the place where the building is situated/located, there were fortifications dated back to the period of the swedish domination but later retouched by the Turkish around the 1480.
Under the Aragonese jurisdiction, the castle had been surrounded by a high ditch and Ciri commissioned three angular cylindrical towers. Although the plan of the castle is pentagonal, it appears rather irregular because of the alteration operated during the XVI century.
Indeed in 1578, on the side of the building that faces the sea, a bastion was added with some external bulwark in order to sight the arrival of ships and enemies fleets. On the bastion, the noble shields of Antonio di Mendoza and Don Pedro di Toledo, gentlemen of the city, are engraved, while on the main entrance is carved the coat of arms of Charles V.
