Castello Orsini-Odescalchi site features

The Castello Orsini-Odescalchi stands over the town of Bracciano on the shore of the lake, 30 km from Rome, and it is the main monument of the place -- one of the largest and best-maintained castles in Italy, and well preserved rather than restored. It is medieval in silhouette and Renaissance in design, which is the tension the building is made of: it was built to combine the functions of a military defence structure and the civilian residence of a feudal lord.

Inside

The interiors are the part that argues against the exterior. Richly frescoed friezes and ceilings run through the rooms, and richly coloured tapestries were made for them while the lords of Bracciano were in residence. The most important survival is a late fifteenth-century frieze showing the labours of Hercules, still visible. Interior decoration in paintings and frescoes was carried out by Antoniazzo Romano, the Roman painter and sculptor of the fifteenth century.

In one of the corner towers is the Sala Papalina, which commemorates the stay of Sixtus IV in 1481, when he fled the plague in Rome; the rooms he used were decorated with frescoes by the brothers Taddeo and Federico Zuccari.

The museum

The historical museum inside the castle holds work from six centuries of rule by popes and kings -- ancient weapons, furniture and paintings, books and manuscripts, frescoes and decorations. It was opened in 1952 by Prince Livio Odescalchi IV.

The castle is also used for events, and has hosted a series of well-publicised weddings. The lake it sits above, Lago di Bracciano or Sabatino, is volcanic and the eighth largest in Italy; the medieval towns of Anguillara Sabazia and Trevignano Romano lie close by.

The Castello Orsini-Odescalchi has had a long second career on screen and as a venue, which is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly: it is a private building that pays for itself partly by being filmed in and married in.

Films and series shot here include Othello, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Imperial Venus, Luisa Sanfelice, Coco Chanel, Medici: Masters of Florence, Castle of the Living Dead of 1964, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. The weddings are the better-known half: Martin Scorsese married Isabella Rossellini here in 1979, Tom Cruise married Katie Holmes here in 2006, and Eros Ramazzotti and Michelle Hunziker and Petra Ecclestone and James Stunt also married here.

The practical consequence for a visitor is that the castle may close for a private event, which a state museum would not.