The unmistakable outline of the Orsini castle in Soriano nel Cimino is visible from many kilometers away.
The castle is one of the most interesting fortresses of Tuscia in which the appearance of a medieval manor is preserved, although we note the Renaissance renovations to turn it into a residential palace.
The castle was built by Pope Nicholas III Orsini in the middle of the thirteenth century, on the highest part of the town, and he established there his summer residence.
The Pope then gave it as a fiefdom to his nephew Orso Orsini, and here he died suddenly in 1280.
The castle consists of a rectangular tower and some smaller buildings and is surrounded by a wall with Guelph battlements.
It is accessed via ramps leading to a guarded entrance from a lower tower. After a covered walkway you reach the courtyard surrounded by arcades added during the fifteenth century that overlook a hall with Gothic cross vaults.
A seventeenth-century staircase leads to the upper floor which was the residence of the Alban lords. Many parts of the castle have been damaged in the twentieth century when it was transformed into a prison.
The great writer Luigi Pirandello stayed on several occasions in the fortress at the beginning of the twentieth century.
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