Between August and September 2009 the third excavation campaign took place in the castle of Rontana (Brisighella-RA), a fortified settlement for which the earliest evidence dates to the 10th century (960 A.D.).

Four main trenches have been opened to date: the first on the summit area of the castle. Here stand the ruins of a partially preserved ogival tower, similar to that of the nearby castle of Ceparano. In the case of Rontana, this was a adaptation of an earlier tower with a circular base to the new siege techniques involving the use of firearms, datable to the end of the 15th-first half of the 16th century. At that moment the entire summit area of the fortified village was enclosed within the Renaissance style ‘rocca’.

The excavations uncovered the cobble paving and perimeter walls of the internal courtyard. At the centre of the quadrangular courtyard there was a circular well, fed by at least two vast vaulted cisterns and flanked by two vertical wells. The main well was completely excavated and reached a depth of 7.70 m, the same depth was probably also reached by the well lateral shafts. This was a system for water conservation and depuration that came into use in Romagna in the late medieval period, and was fairly widespread in Venice from the end of the 10th century onwards. Inside the cisterns the rainwater was filtered by a bed of sand or gravel and then collected in a central well. In the cisterns investigated here a deposit of circa 60 m2 of fluvial sand was partially removed from the vaulted space.
The openings of the four shafts which collected the river water were covered by sandstone millstones which lay below the destruction layers of the castle (end of the 16th century). Inside the well there was a deposit of materials datable to between the end of the 15th and the second half of the 16th century, burnt at the moment when the castle of Rontana, in the hands of a group of brigands, was besieged by papal soldiers in 1591.

Inside the ‘Rocca’ on the western side of the courtyard, the remains of over twenty individuals were found. The skeletons were disarticulated and had been buried casually and the burials sealed by mortar. The finds indicate that these summary burials were those of the brigands executed by the papal army in 1591.
The same area had been used as a cemetery in the preceding centuries, as attested by numerous burials below the floor surface of the ‘Rocca’. A family burial in a coffin, found on the western edge of the excavation area, was of particular interest. It comprised the body of one adult together with four reductions, or successively disturbed burials, whose chronology has yet to be determined.

A vast trapezoidal plateau developed on the north side of the summit area, situated at a depth of circa 6 m below the floor level of the Renaissance ‘Rocca’. The excavations brought to light an ample stretch of the walls which surrounded the castle on the east and west sides. The walls, built of chalk blocks bonded with strong mortar, were constructed at the end of the 13th century, probably by Maghinardo Pagani, who conquered the castle in 1292 and, according to written sources, rebuilt it in stone. The entire surface of the plateau was divided in half by a wall built using the same technique, reinforced with rectangular based buttresses. Abutting the structures traces of an iron making workshop and a dwelling were uncovered; large post holes on the eastern edge were probably related to the containment of an earlier defensive enclosure.

Lastly, on the southern side of the site a tower with an ample rectangular base (circa 30 m2) was identified. Situated close to the curtain wall its entire ground floor was preserved, with walls stone of blocks circa 3.50m high, with a plaster facing on the exterior. The ground floor, covered by a barrel vault was used as a cistern, as attested by the presence of waterproof plaster even on the floor. This structure was probably also built at the end of the 13th century. However, substantial restoration work was visible, perhaps datable to the middle of the following century. The base of the tower was completely covered by buttressing with an oblique facing, made of stone bonded with strong mortar. The entry threshold was identified on the north side of the building, situated on the first floor of the tower, on the opposite side to the curtain wall.