Castle of Fumone, Medieval castle in Fumone, Italy

The Castle of Fumone stands on a ridge in Fumone, province of Frosinone. A tall square tower with a shallow pyramidal roof rises at one end; beside it a two-storey building with a row of small windows and a pitched roof, then a rounded stone bastion projecting from the wall, with more connected stone buildings and tiled roofs. A long stone wall runs along the base of the complex. Inside, the Longhi family's 17th-century hanging garden covers 3,500 m², made by joining the patrol walkways, ditches and four inner towers.

The fortress was built in the 11th century and served the Church as a lookout point for a long time, as it sits high enough to watch over a wide stretch of the surrounding land. During the medieval period it was also used as a prison, holding high-profile captives within its walls.

The name Fumone comes from the smoke signals sent from the high tower to warn that enemies had entered the Via Casilina, giving rise to the saying "Quando Fumone fuma, tutta la campagna trema". Since 1990 the de Paolis heirs, descendants of the Longhi marquises, have opened the castle to guided tours of Celestine V's cell, the hanging garden and the noble floor.

Guided tours, run by the de Paolis family since 1990, cover the cell of Celestine V, the hanging garden and the piano nobile; the castle is reached at Via Umberto I, 27. The hanging garden was made by merging the patrol walkways, the moats and the four inner towers, and at 3,500 m² it is the largest of its kind in Europe at 800 m or more above sea level.

Celestine V was held in a cell next to the chapel built in his memory on the piano nobile, walled up alive for the ten months before his death on 19 May 1296. In 1966 Pope Paul VI visited and left a votive cross in his honour. The antipope Gregory VIII, imprisoned in 1121, was buried in the castle and his body was never found.