FEDERICI TOWER Cividate historic centre is dominated by the imposing mass of the Federici tower that still today, in spite of many readjustements in the course of centuries, testfies a tumultuous but fascinating past. It’s the most important historic building in Cividate. It was built in the 13th century with a scheme similar to the fortified complex in Riviera street: tower, defensive enclosure and mansion. The first building stage is well testified by S. Stefano side, which is still almost completely in a good state, excluding the adding of a window and the battlements. Well kept are also two doors, one on the ground floor and one on the first floor, that has building typology go back to the end of the 12th and the beginning of 13th century. The original tower was probably very different from that we see today: it was probably a more closed building with the openings with a lower light and on the upper levels were only loopholes. More difficult is to interpret the covering that can be assumed only on the grounds of examples already known: plane with corner pillars. In the course of the 14th century the tower was interested by a collapse, that break it vertically in a way similar to the tower in Riviera street. Also other towers have had a similar destination; maybe it was a destructive technique in order to hit the heart of these  defensive, almost invulnerable structures, and make their reconstruction impossible or at least difficult. This reconstruction takes place by Federici’s work (from which the name) around 1390; this date appears engraved in Roman numbers in the south-west portal placed at the base of the building. Also the architectural typology and the use of  the “Simona” stone  or Gorzone stone (no traces of it in the first phase while later it will be largely widespred) provide us the same chronological indication. In 1400 the tower passes from the Federici to Da Cemmo property and just at the beginning of this century the last constructive phase of the bulding takes place. The swallow-tailed crenelation and the parapet were built so that also the covering assumes a defensive function. Many of the society’s best known exponents alternated in the property of the tower, in the course of  the centuries as if the possession of the building were an achievement of the owners’ strength and power.