Ever since Maria Theresa rebuilt Milan in the Neoclassical style, Sforza Castle had seemed terribly out of place.
Milan had once served as the capital of the Western Roman Empire. The area where Sforza Castle stood was called "Campo Marizio," meaning land dedicated to Mars, the god of war, and had often been used for military training since Ancient Rome.
By the Middle Ages, the Visconti family, Dukes of Milan, had expanded the castle where they lived, moving the courtyard out from the royal palace near the cathedral and building a square fortress intended as the permanent residence of the Visconti family. This was also the core area of present-day Sforza Castle.
During the castle's construction in 1360, Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, enclosed a section of the ancient Roman city wall and its entrance, making them part of the castle's defenses and gateway. At the time, a moat still lay between the wall and the courtyard. Then his son added a parade ground behind the moat, and afterward his son tore down part of the old wall, using its bricks to unify the castle with the city wall.
As the residence of newlyweds, and later of Galeazzo Sforza, the castle underwent extensive fresco decoration in the fifteenth century. Yet after the devastation of the Italian Wars, when Francesco Sforza returned to the castle, he rebuilt and expanded it as the residence of his Danish wife, Christina of Denmark.
For a time, it was built into a five-pointed star fort, fashionable at the time, and defensive works still remained into the nineteenth century. This inevitably occupied some of the civilian housing outside.
When it passed from Spain to the Habsburg dynasty of Austria, the castle retained its military purpose. The only artistic trace left here by the Austrians was a