Visconti-Castelbarco Castle, Medieval castle in Cislago, Italy.

This fortress features a U-shaped layout with corner towers and a crenellated roofline characteristic of medieval military design. The two towers flank the courtyard while the notched roof edge dominates the front facade.

The fortress dates to the 10th century and passed to the Visconti family during the 13th century. A marriage alliance later transferred it to the Castelbarco family.

The name joins two families: the Visconti di Cislago, who held the castle from the 13th century, and the Castelbarco, into which Costanza Visconti, the last of her line, married in 1716. Her husband Carlo Francesco Castelbarco gave the building its present form, and their descendants took the surname Castelbarco Visconti.

The castle is a private estate and cannot be visited. The municipal Giardino Castelbarco, a public park, lies in front of the main façade rather than on the castle grounds, and it is from there that the two towers and the crenellated roofline are seen. The castle stands in Cislago, in the province of Varese.

From April to July the castle hosts a colony of common swifts that nest under the old tiles of the crenellations and walls; by the number of breeding pairs it ranks among the most important in the province of Varese. In recent years the swifts have attracted a pair of kestrels, which breed successfully in the putlog holes of the north tower.