Three Castles of Bellinzona
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
Bellinzona, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland, guards the mouth of the valley that runs down from the Alpine passes towards Milan. In the late 1st century BC, under the Emperor Augustus, the Romans built a fort on the rock of Castelgrande.
Late in the 13th century the Rusca family of Como built a second castle, Montebello. The Visconti of Milan then took the town, and in the second half of the 14th century they built the Murata, a long wall across the whole Ticino valley. The tower that became the third castle, Sasso Corbaro, went up in the turmoil of the same era, as Milan fought the Swiss cantons pressing from the north.
In 1499 Louis XII of France invaded Milan, ending about 150 years of Milanese rule. In January 1500 the townspeople drove out the French troops, and on 14 April they joined the Swiss Confederation. Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden ruled the town jointly until 1798. The castles and walls were inscribed in 2000.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).