Il baluardo della Penna

The Penna bastion, also known as San Sebastiano, was the first to be built during the construction of the pentagonal fortification built by Duke Guidobaldo II Della Rovere in 1546.

The fortification, already conceived by Francesco Maria I, father of Guidobaldo II, is the result of careful studies carried out by the most famous military architects of the time. The political-religious strategy saw the need to equip the cities, especially the coastal ones, with a new defensive apparatus, ready to counter the Turkish invasions that constantly threatened the Adriatic coast; from this perspective, it was therefore logical that the Duke began his fortification on the side from which the greatest dangers arose, namely the sea.

Due to the 1930 earthquake, some interventions were carried out which progressively erased the character of a walled village. The 1931 master plan sanctioned the demolition of some buildings, adjacent to and within the walls, on the area of which the Costanzo Ciano school, now Giovanni Pascoli, and the Casa del Balilla were built in 1936, later transformed into the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL), and today home to municipal offices.