Cento Fortress (Rocca di Cento)

The first layout of the Rocca di Cento dates back to 1378, when the Municipality of Bologna, wishing to assert its hegemony on the border with the Ferrara area, entrusted its construction to the engineer-architect Lorenzo da Bagnomarino.

During the following century, Cardinal Filippo Calandrini, head of the diocese of Bologna from 1458 to 1465, ordered a radical reconstruction of the fortress, while his successor Giuliano della Rovere, future Pope Julius II, promoted the construction of the western wing.

It was not until 1502, following the marriage of Alfonso I d’Este to Lucrezia Borgia, that the fortress and the Centopievese territory were assigned as a dowry by Pope Alexander VI to the Lords of Ferrara, who seem to have paid no particular attention in the fortress, which returned to papal hands as a result of the devolution in 1598.