Fort Fuentes

Fort Fuentes, known in Italian as Forte di Fuentes, is a former military fort on a hill near Colico in the province of Lecco, Lombardy, in northern Italy. It was built beginning around 1603 to 1609 by the Spanish governor of Milan, Don Pedro Enríquez de Acevedo, Count of Fuentes, under military architect Gabrio Brusca, to guard the crossroads between the Valtellina, Valchiavenna and Alto Lario valleys and defend the northern edge of Spanish territory against the Grisons. The fort passed out of Spanish hands in 1706, was declared militarily useless by Emperor Joseph II in 1769, decommissioned in 1782, and largely demolished in 1796 on the orders of Napoleon. Fort Montecchio-Lusardi, with eight gun emplacements, was built on the site between 1911 and 1913, and the province of Como, later the province of Lecco, acquired the hill and its ruins in 1987, with a preservation association formed in 1998.