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Origin and history

The castle of If is a fortress built between 1529 and 1531 by order of King Francis I, on the island of If in the archipelago of Friuli, off Marseilles. Designed as a strategic military structure to protect the harbour from Spanish, Turkish or barbaric attacks, this 28-metre-long square structure, flanked by three dangle towers, marks the transition between medieval fortifications and modern bastions adapted to naval artillery. Its central location in the bay makes it an ideal defensive lock, while symbolizing the affirmation of royal power in Provence, sparking the distrust of the Marseillais, who nicknamed it "the Malvoisine".

As early as 1540, the castle was transformed into a state prison, becoming a "bastille of the seas" where political prisoners, Protestants were imprisoned after the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685), or opponents of successive regimes. The conditions of detention vary according to the resources of the detainees: from unsafe cells for the poorest to "pistoles" (pay cells) for the well-off prisoners. The graffiti left by the prisoners, including those of the Republicans of 1848, testify to this turbulent prison history. The site owes its world fame to Alexandre Dumas, who places the imprisonment of Edmond Dantès and Abbé Faria in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844), inspiring a literary mythology that is still alive.

Ranked as a historic monument in 1926, the Castle of If is now managed by the National Monuments Centre and attracts 100,000 visitors annually. Its architecture, combining medieval elements (round towers, thick walls) and bastioned innovations (cannon fire, artillery terraces), reflects 16th century military experiments. The successive developments, such as the peripheral enclosure added in the 17th century or the low batteries proposed by Vauban, illustrate its evolution in the face of progress in armaments. The island, which has been part of the Calanques National Park since 2012, is also home to remarkable biodiversity, with plant species adapted to drought and a protected avifauna.

Prior to its construction, the island of If served as a pasture and was the place of a famous stopover in 1516, when Francis I came to admire an Indian rhinoceros offered to Pope Leo X by the Sultan of Gujarat. This episode, combined with the siege of Marseilles by the Spaniards in 1524, convinced the king of the need to strengthen the Provencal coast. The castle, conceived as a symbol of deterrence as well as defence, quickly became a tool of political control, especially during Louis XIV and during the republican revolts of the nineteenth century.

Among his illustrious prisoners were the Count of Mirabeau (1774–75), locked up on a letter of stamp for debts and dissolute customs, or Louis Auguste Blanqui, a revolutionary imprisoned in 1877 after the Paris Commune. General Kléber, murdered in Cairo in 1800, rested there until 1814. These figures, alongside the graffiti of the prisoners of 1848 — including a frieze of 25 metres transforming the court into a memorial of the defeated ones — underline the role of the castle as a place of memory of the French political struggles.

Since 1890, shuttles have been connecting the Old Port to the island, facilitating access to this iconic site. Tourist developments, such as the reconstruction of the Dantès and Faria cells in the 19th century, or the renovation of the landing site in 2015, have strengthened its attractiveness. Ranked among the most visited paying monuments of Marseilles, the castle of If embodies both an exceptional military heritage, a place of prison memory, and a universal literary symbol.

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