Malaspina Castle in Osilo

You’ll find it inside Osilo, yet once you’re up there it feels like you’ve stepped away from everything. You’re 650 metres up on Mount Tuffudesu, with real stone in front of you. Sharp edges, solid lines, the surviving upper sections of a tower that still knows how to hold your gaze. The Malaspina built this castle in the 12th century, a family from Lunigiana that began to carry real weight in Sardinia from the 12th century and grew its power through the 13th and 14th centuries.

Here, Arboreans and Aragonese fought over control. The castle changed hands often. Then the pace slowed, into a long decline by the 15th century. In 1720 it passed to the House of Savoy. Today, thanks to significant funding, it has recently been restored.

Its layout was an elongated oval, designed to enclose about 1,000 square metres. Little of the original form remains, but what’s left speaks plainly. The main tower, where you can still see the upper sections, the lower part of a second tower, and the perimeter walls of the ancillary spaces. Access is from Via Adelasia, up a stone staircase. And when you reach the top, you immediately understand why it was built here.