Eastern wing of the Fort (Ala orientale del Forte)

Rubiera Castle, built at the behest of the Municipality of Reggio at the beginning of the 13th century to protect the Secchia valley and the Via Emilia, became in the following centuries a fortified nucleus of extraordinary importance for the Este family’s control over the western areas of the domain.

The complex, now known as the “Forte”, includes the surviving and substantially altered architecture of the Rocca di Rubiera, i.e. the eminently military and functionally autonomous structure that included the defensive circuit placed to protect the town. The configuration of the fortress, a probable result of the interventions promoted by the Este family from the 15th century, was still completely intact in the early 19th century. It was a quadrangular complex with an inner courtyard, equipped at the top by four heavily scarped bastions and protected along the external perimeter by a large moat. Facing the western side, a pentagonal bulwark had to be built in later times to defend an access passage which no longer exists today.

After the urban redevelopment works promoted in 1922, the central part of the fortress was demolished and the surviving architecture, recognisable as the four bulwarks, have been readapted to accommodate civic functions.