The Firmafede Fortress was built at the behest of Lorenzo the Magnificent between 1487 and 1492 at the dawn of the victory against the Genoese in the war called "Serezzana". Built on the ashes of a pre-existing fortification erected by Pisa in the thirteenth century, is an important example of Florentine military architecture of the late ‘400. In 1496 Sarzana passed again under the control of the Republic of Genoa, but the Florentine project was completed during the sixteenth century with the construction of the walls that, starting from the fortress, went to surround the whole city. In the nineteenth century, with the annexation of the Republic to the Kingdom of Savoy and the radical changes in defensive strategies, the fortress was used first as a police barracks and then as a prison until the seventies of the twentieth century.
