Audiotour Fortezza medicea di Arezzo nel medieovo 2_2 en

After the fall of the Roman Empire the city contracted considerably and between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. the two hills of San Pietro and San Donato, where much of the late ancient town was to be concentrated, were surrounded by defensive walls built with materials obtained from the destruction of the ancient monuments.

In the twelfth-thirteenth century the city was surrounded by new walls, now visible in part within the bastions “del Soccorso” and “della Chiesa”. The latter owes its name to the presence of the Church of San Donato in Cremona, mentioned by the sources since 1098 and recently the subject of numerous excavation campaigns. The church, with a rectangular apse plan, divided into three naves by pillars, in the thirteenth century was equipped with a crypt with two columns.

 Starting from the thirteenth century, the city of Arezzo was configured as a castle consisting of a village and a stately area defined, in written sources, Cassero Grande, then Citadel and Casseretto o Cassero, in which were the public buildings, defended and delimited by its own boundary wall, located where now the Fortress stands.

From this period hail both the Angel's Gate (fig. 1, n. 8), so called for the discovery of a statue of St. Michael in a niche placed above the opening, and the bastion identified during the archaeological excavations conducted at the current entrance of the Fortress.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century Arezzo was in the hands of the Florentines. In 1502, after the failure of a rebellion by a part of the Arretine against Florence, the latter planned a reconversion of the Citadel to adapt it to the changed style of warfare, induced by the spread of firearms.

The first project was entrusted to Giuliano da Sangallo who was joined in 1508 by his brother, Antonio the Elder. From this period remain the bastions “della Chiesa” and “del Soccorso”, characterized by a particular hearthshaped conformation.

The Fortress was completed in 1540 on a new project by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who integrated the parts previously built and those that survived the umpteenth rebellion of Arezzo that took place between 1529 and 1530. Before proceeding with the new construction, it was decided to "ruin everything".

Even the part of the city that stood in the valley that separated the hills of San Donato and San Pietro was razed to the ground to create an open and more defensible space around the Fortress; the heartshaped bastions were maintained and three others were built: Belvedere (to the west), Diacciaia to the north, which owes its name to the ice-house recently brought to light and, in the center, the bastion of the Spina.

In 1782, Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena, thanks also to the particular period of peace enjoyed by the city, decided to dismiss the Fortress and suppressed the military garrison.

In 1799 the defensive structure was reactivated on the occasion of the rebellion against the French, who had occupied the entire region. But in October 1800 the Napoleonic troops entered the city; as a punitive gesture the Bastione Belvedere was mined (it remains split into two parts to this day) and subsequently the Bastione del Soccorso e Bastione della Chiesa; in November of the same year the French entered the Fortress damaging the buildings used as warehouses and destroying the church of San Donato in Cremona.

After the departure of the French troops, the Fortress was purchased by the Fossombroni family (1816) who turned it into an agricultural field, demolishing most of the buildings inside.

In the cadastral plan of 1826 there were only two structures left: part of the housing for the soldiers transformed into a farmhouse and the "studiolo Fossombroni" above the Bastione della Spina.

In 1893, Fossombroni bequeathed the Fortress to the Municipality of Arezzo, which undertook impressive restoration works starting in 2010, while the archaeological excavations were directed by the Soprintendenza.