Cortine hill and fortress

Cortine is the name of one of the hills within Sirmione, once surrounded by walls and stronghold within a system of fortifications of the late Roman period

The hill of Cortine is studied in detail together with the system of fortifications by Count Giovanni Gerolamo Orti Manara in the mid-18th century in his “The peninsula of Sirmione”; he describes the area by writing that: “On the floor of this mountain, within the circle of the walls, many foundations of houses with mosaic floors emerged. At the distance of m. 23 from the summit there was a pool dug in the hard rock (n°9) of the length of m.8, and the width of 4. Coins from the times of Constantine came to light up to the Venetian Republic. …… I could not excavate in that place, because it was reduced to cultivation at that time by the parish priest,” . It seems therefore that initially there were Roman houses with a swimming pool and later, with the fortification of the whole area, the hill had been transformed into an internal fortress where to escape in case of attack and accessed through the passage n ° 8.

Below is a detail of the Sirmione plant by Orti Manara, with the letter D, the area of the Colle di Cortine