Where it was filmed 'Citadel: Diana'

The Citadel: Diana series was filmed in various Italian locations: Milan, Gibellina, Palermo, Scopello (Trapani), Como, Rome, Pomezia, Ravenna. Locations also in Switzerland (Lugano, at the San Gottardo Pass near Airolo) and France (Paris).

The richness of the locations is one of the series’ strong points. In Milan, the main setting for the story, exteriors were filmed in piazza Duomo, of Palazzo Arengario, City Life, in the Porta Venezia district where Diana's house is located (the interiors were built on a sound stage), at Niguarda hospital and outside the Central station, with a chase on via Vittor Pisani that required over 70 security personnel and dozens of stunt vehicles.

In Sicily, locations included Gibellina, inside the large cretto, an imposing work of environmental art created by Alberto Burri and one of the most important in the contemporary Italian artistic panorama, a testimony to the devastating Belice earthquake that destroyed the town in 1968; outside the Chiesa Madre designed by Ludovico Quaroni; and inside the Consagra theatre, an unfinished work designed by the artist whose name it bears. Also worth mentioning are the beautiful tonnara of Scopello, Villa Igiea and streets in Palermo.

In Como, Villa Erba in Cernobbio, a jewel of late 19^th-century architecture, provided the location for the Zani family home. The taste and refinement of the family members are reflected in the choice of this elegant villa on the lake with its refined and precious furnishings, deco embellishments and family paintings alternating with works of contemporary art.

A large number of sets was built in Rome where some of the series’ most complex action scenes were shot; locations also included the wonderful architectural lines of Palazzo dei Congressi; the sumptuous interiors of the Roma Convention Center “La Nuvola"; and, with the support of the Italian Air Force, the Pratica di Mare airport. The former water tower of Pontinia provides the backdrop to the epilogue.

It was necessary to adapt the locations, mostly the exteriors, to suit the setting of a dystopian future. For the most narratively complex locations, a careful combination of soundstage sets, real locations (with onsite adaptations), often with the addition of digital effects, was required. One of the best examples is the headquarters of Manticore Italia, the dark seat from where the Zani family reigns over a dystopian Milan with fear and power, a place “hidden in full view” and fictionally positioned beneath the city’s piazza Duomo. Excavations in this area carried out in the Sixties for the city’s subway actually resulted in an underground city and unearthed the remains of the baptistery of San Giovanni alla Fonte and the early Christian Basilica of Santa Tecla, the oldest in Milan. The exteriors of the Zani headquarters were filmed in Milan (Palazzo dell’Arengario), the entrance on location in Rome (Palazzo dei Congressi) and the interiors were built on a soundstage: the structure was inspired by the Brutalist architecture of the Sixties with thick modern concrete walls, clean cuts and multifaceted plays of light.

There is a different atmosphere at the Manticore France building, as suits the character of their leader, the beautiful, cold Cécile: here everything is blinding white or deep shiny black and there are no straight walls but only curved lines that make the headquarters a sophisticated labyrinth destined to disorientate and prompt anxiety in a place as cold and ruthless as its inhabitants. This modern maze (with exteriors filmed in Paris, entrance in Milan (the Human Technopole, formerly Palazzo Italia of EXPO Milano 2015) and interiors on a sound stage in Rome) is the setting for a protracted battle between the legions of Evil for control of Europe and the world.

The interiors of Manticore Castle were filmed outside Rome, at the Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, while the exteriors were filmed at the San Gottardo Pass in Switzerland.