The Sforzesco Castle is a large fortified complex located in Milan just outside the historic city center.
It was built in the fifteenth century by Francesco Sforza , who had at that time recently become the Duke of Milan, on the remains of a previous medieval fortification of the fourteenth century known as the Castello di Porta Giovia (or Zobia ). In the same area where the Castello di Porta Giovia stood, in Roman times, there was the homonymous Castrum Portae Jovis, one of the four defensive castles of Roman Milan .
Considerably transformed and modified over the centuries, the Castello Sforzesco was, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one of the main military citadels in Europe; restored in historicist style by Luca Beltrami between 1890 and 1905, it is now home to cultural institutions and important museums. It is one of the largest castles in Europe and one of the main symbols of Milan and its history.
