Del Monte

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Shortened history of the castle:

The castle Del Monte (in Italian: Castle of the Mount) is a 13th century castle situated in southeastern Italy. It was first built by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II some time between 1240 and 1250; it has been despoiled of its interior marbles and furnishings in subsequent centuries. What is surprising about this castle is that it neither a moat nor a drawbridge and might in fact never have been intended as a defensive fortress.

In the 14th century, it was turned into a prison, and later used as a refuge during the Plague. It originally had marble walls and columns, but all were stripped by vandals.

The fortress is an octagonal prism with an octagonal bastion at each corner. Each floor has 8 rooms and an eight-sided courtyard occupies its centre.[1] The octagon is thought to be an intermediate symbol between a square (representing the earth) and a circle (representing the sky).

After having been abandoned for a considerable length of time, the castle was purchased in 1876 for the sum of 25,000 lire by the Italian government, which began the process of restoration in 1928.

The castle was considered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, who described it as "a unique masterpiece of medieval military architecture".

The castle appears on one of the sides of the Italian 1 Euro cent coin.

Löwenburg

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Shortened history of the castle:

The Löwenburg Castle (which means the Lion's Castle) is located in the mountain park in Kassel (Hessen, Germany).

This artificial castle was designed by Christoph Heinrich Jussow 1793-1800, centuries after the construction of real castles in Germany. This castle is the imitation of a medieval castle and was deliberately built as an artificial ruin.

It houses an armory of weapons and armor of the 16th and 17 Century.

The first owner was Wilhelm IX and the castle served as a residence for himself and his mistress, Caroline of Schlotheim, later Countess Hessenstein. In 1821 he was buried in a crypt beneath the chapel.

From 1940 to 1945 the Royal Air Force flew several raids on the defense industry for the war economy of National Socialism important city of Kassel. The dungeon of the castle was largely destroyed and large parts of the site were severely damaged. The reconstruction was done in the postwar years, quite useful and was characterized by functionality rather than by detail. The work is still not complete. The keep was not built again, but this is intended for the coming years.

In 1922, Georg Jacoby filmed part of his movie "So the Men are" in the castle. In this movie, Marlene Dietrich had her first small role.