When I recently reviewed two books that take place in Italy, A Small Place in Italy and The Midwife of Venice, my search for Italian photos brought these extras to mind. Castle building was a big business in Renaissance Italy, and one architect, Francisco de Georgio Martini, was the designer for many of the fortress castles topping hills in the Le Marche region, and many were built by the Montefeltro family. Few actually saw war, so they served the same purpose that the building of a mansion or purchase of a yacht serve nowadays–to burnish the reputation of the owners.
