Franzensfeste Fortress is a fortress situated in a a village Franzensfeste

Franzensfeste

Franzensfeste is a village in Northern Italy, in South Tyrol . The village is famous for its large fort and the historic railway-station.-Geography:...

, in South Tyrol

South Tyrol

South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Emperor Francis I

Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor

Francis I was Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany, though his wife effectively executed the real power of those positions. With his wife, Maria Theresa, he was the founder of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty...

 began constructing the fortress in 1833. In 1838 the project had been abandoned, because the area was not considered to be functional to place a fortress.

In the summer of 2008 the fortress was opened to the public for the first time as one of the locations of Manifesta

Manifesta

Manifesta, the , is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale, described in 2010 by the as "stunning in its scope and uncompromisingly experimental in its approach".-Manifesta History:...

7, the European Biennial of Contemporary art.