Cittadella di Alessandria

A vast star-shaped fortress on the edge of Alessandria, the Cittadella is one of the most imposing 18th-century fortifications in Europe. Its grassy ramparts, deep moat and barracks preserve a landscape where military history, nature and the memory of Italian unification meet.

Why it matters

The Cittadella is the defining monument of Alessandria. Begun by the House of Savoy after the city's annexation in 1707, it grew into one of the biggest plain fortresses of its century, covering roughly 60 hectares with six pentagonal bastions and an extraordinary system of moats, counterguards and outer works. It was the Savoy state's great plain fortress of the 1700s, built in the manner of "fortification à la moderne". The fortress remains surrounded by open ground beyond the Tanaro, a rare survival of a monument on this scale.

What to notice

• The immense defensive ring: a moat about 50 metres wide in front of the bastions and up to 120 metres in front of the curtain walls, crossed at two entrances, the Porta Reale and the Porta del Soccorso.
• The hexagonal trace with its six bastions, two of which retain the original 18th-century profile while four were reworked under Napoleon.
• The internal parade ground (Piazza d'Armi) framed by long barracks blocks named San Tommaso, San Carlo and San Michele, the Governor's Palace begun in 1762, the hospital and the arsenals.
• The slope at the main entrance, which gives a visceral sense of how much earth was moved to build the works.
• The Military Uniform Museum, which adds another layer to the site's military history.

Context and history

Construction followed the Treaty of the Alliance of 1703 and Alessandria's formal passage to Savoy in 1707. The military engineer Ignazio Bertola, who had learned hard lessons at the 1706 siege of Turin, produced the first drawings in 1727; work started in 1732 and the main defensive apparatus was complete around 1745. To clear the ground the ancient quarter of Borgoglio was demolished, and the works were initially disguised as flood defences so that Austria would not understand their purpose. The marshy subsoil forced builders to set the foundations on wooden piles.

The fortress changed hands dramatically after 1796, and after the battle of Marengo on 14 June 1800 Napoleon made it the principal French stronghold in the Po valley, enlarging the outer works between 1803 and 1813. In the Risorgimento it became a stage for national history: on 10 March 1821 the tricolour was raised on its bastions at the start of the Piedmontese insurrection, and the patriot Andrea Vochieri was held and executed here in 1833. Later prisoners included Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1867 and, in 1943, the writer Giovannino Guareschi. Damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and used as a barracks into the Cold War, the fortress was released by the Ministry of Defence in 2007, passed to the State Property Agency and handed in 2016 to the heritage authorities, whose offices now occupy the former Caserma Pasubio. The fortress's heritage significance has also been recognized through national and European conservation initiatives.