Bastia Castle

  Bastia can be reached from Florence following the motorway A11 until the innest with the A12 Livorno-Genova, then driving towards Genova until 'La Spezia' and from here taking the A15 up to the exit 'Aulla'. From here we must follow the indication to Licciana Nardi.

The castle of Bastia rises to the center of the homonym country, above a hill 500 meters high set above the town of Licciana Nardi. It's at strategic dominion of the valley where since the Middle Age flows an important road,  point of forced passage from the regions of  Liguria and Tuscany toward Emilia-Romagna. The whole territory and all its castles, as the whole Lunigiana,   were subject to the dominion of the feudal family of the Malaspina, that strengthened the whole zone to use the advantages that the important street of communication offered, first for the imposition of tributes to the travelers.

The castle, excellently preserved and residence of privates today, has the aspect of a thick square fortification, with four round towers to the angles and one more tall to the inside with the function of keep. The two  towers nearest to the keep have a greatest circumference as the others. The actual form is clearly of a bastioned fortress of the XV° century, but the presence of the aforesaid tower in the middle of the enclosure lets think that it may derived from the updating of a preceding small fortress to the new warlike demands of the time. After all, due to the highly strategic position of the fortification, the contrary would be strange. The castle is visitable only from the outside, but we can notice the extraordinary solidity of the construction and the rests of the brackets that sustained the machicoulis (projection from the wall made of stone which has openings through which the defenders can fire upon an enemy directly below) along the whole curtain wall. The traces of the battlement don't exist anymore that, as in all the other castles Malaspiniani, had to have the form of 'tail of swallow' also said 'Ghibelline'. Very interesting are also the lot of loopholes that  are opened in the bastioned walls, for their form suited for the draught of the fire weapons, this additions was done probably in the XVI° century. The primitive entry has been replaced by a stairway in stone, under whose arc are still visible what remains of the original steps of that.