Caldoresco Castle

The history of the castle is strictly connected to Giacomo Caldora, the mercenary leader who, after seizing the city in 1439, had it fortified with the renovation of the walls and the upgrading of the city’s fortifications with a new defense system. The fort was established on a previous building which in turn, laid its foundation on walls constituting the northern entrance of the Histonium Roman amphitheatre still visible from the cellars of the palace. The original building probably had a rectangular plan, as the present one, but smaller, with four cylindrical towers on the corners and another bigger tower in the centre of the yard. In 1439 the fortification was achieved and reinforcement was done with big angular bastions and thicker walls.
On the western side of the urban perimeter that includes also the castle, one can observe today how the city’s wall defense system is integrated by the towers of Bassano, Santo Spirito and Diomede del Moro, altered in their 15^th-century layout by the further addition of other stories.
Following the destructions that the Vasto population underwent during the 15^th century riots, the castle was strongly reconstructed at the end of the same century by Innico d’Avalos, who takes credit for many of the interventions that gave the building its present status: he had the four bastions built, as well as the ditches and northern tower.
The restoration done by the d’Avalos, though a crude one, retained the primitive architectonical lines, thus giving the building a certain continuity until 1816, a date that will be remembered as the start of an inexorable overturning of the entire building. New constructions of a totally different styles, were gradually annexed to the structure which finally made the western side unrecognizable. Today the fortification looks like a “palimpsest” monument, with Aragonese bastions surrounding the previous nucleus and with annexes and high rising external structures which started in the 18^th century. The structure was gradually deprived of its purpose, hence of its military aspect, adapting it to new residential functions.