The imposing fortress situated on the little island of Borgo Marinaro was so Called probably because of its egg-shaped plant. In Naples still lives also a legend about the origin of this fortress: it says that Virgilio closed an egg inside a carafe and if the egg would have broken, the castle would have been destroyed.
However the building remained solid and strong, till the end of the XV century, when it was first bombed by Charles the VIIIth and later it was destroyed by the explosion of a booby-trap.
It was coompletely rebuilt at the end of the XVII century but in 1773 it was bombed again by the troops of Charles of Bourbon.
The architecture is the one typical of the fortress, while the internal part of the castle is still connected to the monastic life that took place on the island for centuries: the church of S.Salvador, the conventual cell excavated in rock and the big columns'hall that probably was the refectory of the monastery.
The imposing fortress situated on the little island of Borgo Marinaro was so Called probably because of its egg-shaped plant. In Naples still lives also a legend about the origin of this fortress: it says that Virgilio closed an egg inside a carafe and if the egg would have broken, the castle would have been destroyed.
