The Cittadella (), also known as the Castello (), is the citadel of Victoria on the island of Gozo, Malta. The area has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, and the site now occupied by the Cittadella is believed to have been the acropolis of the Punic-Roman city of Gaulos or Glauconis Civitas. During the medieval period, the acropolis was converted into a castle which served as a refuge for Gozo's population. A suburb began to develop outside its walls by the 15th century, and this area now forms the historic core of Victoria. The castle's defences were obsolete by the 16th century, and in 1551 an Ottoman force invaded Gozo and sacked the Cittadella. A major reconstruction of the southern walls of the Cittadella was undertaken between 1599 and 1622, transforming it into a gunpowder fortress. The northern walls were left intact, and today they still retain a largely medieval form. The new fortifications were criticized in later decades, and plans to demolish the entire citadel were made multiple times in the 17th and 18th centuries, but were never carried out. The Cittadella briefly saw action during the French invasion and subsequent uprising in 1798; in both cases the fortress surrendered without much of a fight. It remained a military installation until it was decommissioned by the British on 1 April 1868. The Cittadella contains churches and other historic buildings, including the Cathedral of the Assumption, which was built between 1697 and 1711 on the site of an earlier church. The citadel has been included on Malta's tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1998. History Prehistory and antiquity Although there is only limited evidence of Neolithic remains in the Cittadella or Victoria, it is likely that the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age, given its size and strategic position. Ceramics discovered inside the Cittadella suggest that the area was a settlement in prehistory. Archaeological remains such as pottery show that the site of the Cittadella was definitely inhabited during the Bronze Age, in the Tarxien Cemetery and Borġ in-Nadur phases of Maltese prehistory. Bronze Age silos were discovered outside the Cittadella in the 19th century, suggesting that during this period the settlement was larger than the present-day citadel. The Victoria area remained the main settlement on Gozo throughout the Phoenician and Roman periods, and it became a settlement known as Gaulos or Glauconis Civitas. The