Rocca Ariostesca

This guide to Rocca Ariostesca in Lucca opens in fifteen twenty-three, when the poet Ludovico Ariosto, freshly famous for Orlando Furioso, found himself governing this fortress instead of writing verse. It follows his capture of the feared bandit known as the Moor of Sillico, held in a cell inside these walls, and the visitor who slipped through at night claiming only friendship. Ariosto had barely a dozen crossbowmen to guard woods full of raiders, and the bandit's own village enjoyed protection few governors could touch. Climb the bell tower behind the courtyard, where his own poem now plays out as a lit, multimedia stage.