Forte di Fenestrelle (Forte di Fenestrelle/Fortezza di Fenestrelle)

Strung along a mountain ridge above the Chisone valley, Fenestrelle Fort is less a single fortress than a chain of fortified works climbing towards 1,800 metres. Begun for the House of Savoy in 1728 and only finished in 1850, it watches the old invasion route towards Turin.

Why it matters

The custodians of Fenestrelle describe their monument as the largest alpine fortress in Europe, and the numbers behind the phrase are startling. The works run for more than three kilometres along the crest, cover some 1,350,000 square metres of mountainside, and climb through a vertical difference of about 600 metres between the first and the last building. This is not one fort but eight distinct defensive works, from the great palaces of Forte San Carlo down to the small Ridotta Santa Barbara, each with its own role in the Savoyard defence of the Chisone. A volunteer association has restored the complex sector by sector since 1990, preserving its massive defensive fabric.

What to notice

Forte San Carlo forms the heart of the complex, where the piazza d'armi is framed by the officers' quarters, barracks and the fort's own church. Two stairways connect the chain of works: the covered staircase, a walled gallery of four thousand steps sheltering an uninterrupted climb of over two kilometres, and the open Scala Reale, its three thousand steps laid on the gallery's roof. Higher up the mountain the terrain narrows to bastions and lookout posts, including the Garitta del Diavolo at 1,400 metres on Forte Tre Denti, and ends at Forte delle Valli near 1,800 metres, where the garrison watched the valley heads. The Strada dei Cannoni is an artillery road that threads through pine woods.

Context and history

In autumn 1727 the military engineer Ignazio Bertola presented King Vittorio Amedeo II with a project of almost unimaginable scale: a fortified wall barring the Chisone valley against foreign invasion. Work began in spring 1728 under Bertola's own direction, aided by engineer Varino de la Marche, and continued for more than a century; at the busiest moments over four thousand labourers were employed, and the last construction site closed only in 1850. The fortress never lost its garrison role, but like other great strongholds it also served as a state prison. Among the prominent detainees was Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca, Pope Pius VII's secretary of state; in late 1860 about 1,190 soldiers of the defeated Bourbon army were held here for roughly a month before joining the new Italian army, an episode preserved in the fortress's history. Abandoned by the military after the Second World War, the complex was choked by vegetation until the volunteers of Progetto San Carlo began clearing and restoring it in 1990, working with the state property agency and the heritage authority.