Tourist Attraction in Pescara:
Il Fortino del Pescara

The Fortino of Pescara, also known as the Bourbon Bath, was a military fortress, built in 1510 at the behest of Charles V. After various transformations of the historic center of Pescara, in 1998 it became the seat of the Museum of the Gentiles of Abruzzo. Before 1510, the city of Pescara was a very dislocated urban area, and at the mercy of the miasma of the marshes of the Porto Canale of the Pescara river. With the risk of attacks by the Turks, Charles V erected some control towers at the ports of the main Adriatic seaside towns of the central south, starting from Giulianova, up to the deep south of Puglia. Pescara, being an urban agglomeration sufficiently extended, was chosen as a marine stronghold of the Giustizierato d'Abruzzo, being exactly in the middle of the two Abruzzi Citeriore and Ulterior, near the Pescara river that was the territorial boundary. In 1557 the project was continued by Erardo Balreduc. The project was very ambitious, namely that of a hexagonal fortress, with relative minor vertexes on the sides of the major summits, controlling the small urban area of ​​Portanuova, with a fulcrum in the Real Piazza di Pescara, and the village of Castellammare. In the eighteenth century the fortress was already under the control of the Borboni Neapolitan, however, having now disappeared the Turkish threat, the walls of the fortress were demolished several times, to promote urban development. Especially Castellammare Adriatico grew in population, and began a rivalry between the two villages, until the separation in 1807, with the proclamation of Castellammare common autonomous. The fortress in that period became a group of barracks with adjoining prison, the Bourbon penal bath, which became known with the repressions of Joachim Murat in 1806 and later with the repression of the insurrectional upheavals of 1848. Before 1861 there was also enclosed the patriot Clemente De Caesaris, then released by order of Giuseppe Garibaldi, and will nicknamed the bath as "Sepolcro dei Vivi". Also following the Unification of Italy, the fortress was visited by Vittorio Emanuele II, who marveled at the imposing construction of a small city on the Adriatic. In 1882 there was the first regulatory plan of the city of Pescara, which foresaw the construction of new public spaces, the modernization of communication and transit routes, and the demolition of some parts of the fortress to obtain housing. In the early '900 Gabriele d'Annunzio himself, in his Novelle della Pescara (1902), told stories set in the late nineteenth century, testifying the precarious conditions of the prison, as well as the inhumane method with which the prisoners were treated. The barracks continued to exercise their office until the bombing of Pescara in 1943. Historical photographs show, before the war, the historic fort now unrecognizable, of which only the band near the river had survived, along the Via dei Bastioni: a rectilinear agglomeration fortified with sloping roof and windows. After further damage to the Second World War, the fort was only recovered in 1982. On March 13, 1998 the Museum of the People of Abruzzo was inaugurated in its current location.

Attractions in Pescara