# General view [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [ARCHITECT, Italian]() - Date: 1301-1350 - Technique: Photo ## Commentary Situated at 142 metres above sea level, with the Republic of San Marino, Rimini and Carpegna in the background, Gradara represents an extraordinary urban and architectural combination. Legend has it that the castle was the scene of the famous and tragic love story of Paolo and Francesca, caught in each other's arms and killed by Gianciotto, Francesca's husband. This love story was immortalized by Dante in his Canto V of the Divine Comedy. The classic relationship between the castle and the fortified township in its fully developed early-fourteenth-century form is given small-scale by the brick-built complex at Gradara. Although there are some later modifications, the substance of the existing scheme was apparently devised for the Malatesta c. 1307-25. During the centuries the Griffo, the Sforza, the Borgia and the Della Rovere families lived here. The principal living quarters and the dominant tower or keep take up the outer corner of the main rectangular structure. The rectangular main block, with its courtyard and four corner towers, has only two of its sides within the walls. The exposed flanks, with a major and a minor gate were protected by a moat. This castle, with its pleasant living rooms in the storey beneath the machicolated battlements, reflects a tendency common to many of its late-thirteenth- and early-fourteenth-century fellows. ## Related artworks - [Aerial view]() - [Aerial view]() - [Apse of a basilica]() - [Arsenale Gateway]() - [Arsenale Gateway]() - [Basilica di Sant'Antonio: Chiostro del Noviziato]() - [Basilica Santi Nereo e Achilleo]() - [Ca' Foscari: Façade]() - [Chamber of the millers]() - [Chiesa dell'Incoronata: Interior of the dome]() - [Cloister gallery]() - [Detail of the façade]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()