Rocca Paolina (Paolina Fortress), Perugia (must see)

Pope Innocent VI had his papal eye on Perugia. He was wasting away in exile in Avignon. Cardinal Aegidius Albornoz, Innocent's military factotum, was a crusty old campaigner. He got Perugia back in the Peace of Bologna in 1370.

In 1373 Albornoz capped the whole affair by commissioning a fortress to be built on the Colle del Sole, the highest hill in Perugia. Let the locals look at that. The fortress was designed by Gattapone da Gubbio. It was the biggest and best around. Nonetheless, the locals soon tired of looking. There was an uprising. The fortress was destroyed.

Popes may come and go but mainly they stay. In 1540 Pope Paul III noticed that Perugia had not paid the papal salt tax. Salt was used in those days as a food preservative. Perugians rebelled. They refused to salt their bread or pay the tax. Legend has it that to this day, bread is not salted.

But this was irksome. The Pope sent in troops. The Perugians lost the Salt War and the Pope knew he needed a bigger fort. He commissioned Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to build a super-sized fortress. This one would be on the city's other hill, the Colle Landone.

Antonio would not disappoint. Entire districts of the city were razed, including the houses of the Baglioni family. The Pope really hated the Baglionis. The new fortress stood more or less until the unification of Italy in 1860, when it was basically destroyed.

The only parts of the fort visible today are the base walls on the Via Indipendenza and the east bastion on Via Marzia. Entrance to the foundations of the fortress is through here. The Gothic doorways of the old stone houses can still be seen among the brick walls of Lord Sangallo (Signore Sangallo).

Escalators extend from the underground parking of Piazza Partigiani through the Paolina Fortress under the portico of the Government Palace and into the Italy Square. Behind the Carducci terrace gardens, setting on the bones of the fortress, offer more great views of Perugia.