Castello di Bornato, Medieval castle in Cazzago San Martino, Lombardy, Italy.

This fortress features a rare combination of medieval defensive walls with merlons, towers, and a Renaissance villa built inside the ancient fortification, showcasing centuries of architectural evolution.

Everardo Bornato had the castle built in 1280 on the site of an earlier Roman castrum. Its curtain wall with merlons, towers, buttresses, moats and drawbridge date to 1275 and are attributed to Inverardo da Bornato, lord and condottiero of the place. The Gandini, successors of the Bornato family, added a linear villa inside the walls between the 17th and 18th centuries. The Mondella family held the castle until the 19th century, when Giuseppe "Pinotto" Mondella lost it in a card game; the Orlando family bought it in 1938.

The assembly hall's frescoes were painted in 1669 by Pompeo Ghitti, who did the figures, with P. A. Sorisene handling the decorations. The castle later passed to the Gandini, who built the linear villa inside the walls between the 17th and 18th centuries, with 18th-century frescoed rooms and coffered ceilings.

Open to visitors from March to November on Sundays and holidays, the castle offers guided tours that can be booked in advance for groups throughout the year.

The cellars under the main tower held the castle's wine production for 700 years, until the early 2000s. The Orlando family, owners since 1938, kept this going: Luigi Orlando completed the purchase, and his daughter Luisa later opened an agricultural estate there.