The Castle of San Giorgio was built between the late 14th and early 15th centuries as a defensive fortress, designed by the engineer Bartolino da Novara. It later became the residence of the Gonzaga family and, almost from the beginning, was used as a place of detention. In the 19th century, under Austrian rule, the upper floor housed political prisoners. The cells, secured with heavy doors and iron-barred windows, were divided into two sections: two rooms for women and a larger area for men. The complex included the inspector’s quarters, an infirmary and a camerino delle bastonature (flogging room). Prisoners accused of serious crimes were often chained, with one end of the chain fixed to an iron ring in the wall, still visible today. Among those held here were several key Risorgimento figures mentioned throughout this guide: Don Enrico Tazzoli, Carlo Poma, Pietro Fortunato Calvi and Felice Orsini. On the cell walls, alongside fragments of 15th-century frescoes, one can still read inscriptions and see drawings left by the prisoners, including the famous phrase “W l’Italia” (Long live Italy) carved into a window ledge. After Italian unification, Antonino Bertolotti, director of the State Archives housed in the castle, transformed two cells, those of Tazzoli and Orsini, into patriotic memorials. Felice Orsini, a follower of Mazzini and involved in various revolutionary activities, was arrested in Hungary in 1854 and subsequently imprisoned in the Castle. He famously escaped by sawing through the bars and climbing out of the window using a rope made from sheets. News of his daring escape quickly spread across Europe. He took refuge in London, where he and accomplices planned an assassination attempt on Napoleon III. The attempt failed, and Orsini was arrested and executed in Paris a few days later. The cells where he had been held were later converted into shrines, displaying documents and memorabilia of the patriots and becoming sites of pilgrimage. Tazzoli’s portrait was hung in his cell alongside a copy of Monsignor Luigi Martini’s Confortatorio.