The Cité of Carcassonne

Description

The Cité de Carcassonne, classified in 1997 among the masterpieces of UNESCO World Heritage, is the largest fortified urban complex of the Middle Ages, including a double ring of walls - four gates, fifty-two towers -, a comtal castle, and a basilica. An emblematic stronghold of royal power on the border between France and Aragon for several centuries, this citadel lost its strategic role at the end of the 17th century. The book tells the history of the Cité, the restorations carried out in the 19th century by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, and the controversies that these restorations aroused.