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 Fortresses
built to defend, they now conquer us with their
proud beauty. With their bold turrets and
spectacular halls, it is hard to resist the
fascination of a medieval castle. Experiencing
this emotion presents no difficulty in Sicily.
The island's very nature as a bulwark between
Europe and the Mediterranean has inevitably made
it by definition a land of castles - there are
some two hundred, built by the Swabians and by
noble families such as the Chiaramontes and the
Ventimiglias.
Today many of the castles that centuries ago
were impregnable fortresses have lowered their
drawbridges to let visitors make a journey back
into time and rediscover this fairytale aspect
of the Middle Ages.
Castles itinerary in
the nine Sicilian Provinces
 If
one wishes to relive the pomp and splendour of medieval days, one has to
climb almost so high as the clouds up to Erice, an ancient town of
Phoenician origin, where everything has remained as it was.
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 A
double murder that at the time touched public opinion and caused great
scandal, passed down to posterity in a little poem in Sicilian dialect
entitled "The Bitter Case of the Baroness of Carini" - has consigned to
popular legend the name of this castle.
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 Building
on the palace began in 1307 with the Chiaramonte family, one of the
wealthiest and most powerful in the Aragonese period. It belonged to
Andrea, the last descendant, who was executed on 1 June 1392 opposite
the entrance to the building.
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 Built
in the Norman period, perched high on a steep rocky spur, this
castle of the Chiaramonte family is without a doubt one of
Sicily's most important, most evocative, and best conserved
feudal fortresses, apart from being the biggest.
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 Built
by the Arabs, this was a fortified castle inside the city itself, in an
area now adjacent to the quays of the port. One of Palermo's most
ancient constructions, it was the favourite residence of Frederick
II during his sojourns in Palermo.
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 The
construction of this castle began in 1316, by order of Count
Francesco I of Ventimiglia, over the ruins of the ancient
Byzantine town of Ypsigro, high on the San Pietro hill. Hence
its original name, "Castello del buon aere" ("Castle of good
air").
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 The
Citadel, now reduced to a few derelict and tumbledown bastions, was
built by the Spaniards in order to repress and keep under constant
control any popular uprisings by the population of Messina.
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 Montalbano
Castle, in the Nebrodi Mountains, was part of Frederick II's plan to
provide Sicily with a system of "strong points" defending the whole
territory. Constructed in its present form between 1302 and 1311, it
played a leading role in the control of the valley.
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 The
peninsula of Milazzo, stretching out towards the Aeolian Islands, has
always been one of the most important harbours in Sicily. There was a
stronghold here under the Romans and then under the Arabs.
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 Originally,
in the 13th cent., this castle was a Swabian military outpost of
Messina, no distance away. Later, in the 16th cent., it belonged to the
Marchese family, eventually passing to the Ruffo family, who until the
17th cent. used it as a hunting lodge.
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 The
name Ursino comes from the Latin "Castrum sinus", i.e. "castle of the
gulf" - originally it stood high above the sea, but as a result of the
lava flow caused by the eruption of Mount Etna in 1669 it is now some
hundreds of metres from the coast.
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 Among
the numerous monuments left by the Normans all over Sicily, one of the
most important is certainly Paterṇ Castle, a majestic
parallelepiped-shaped construction 34 metres high that towers above the
underlying town.
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 Tradition
has it that this castle was founded by Count Roger, father of Roger II,
who in 1070 freed Adrano from Arab domination. Evidence of an original
Arab construction can be seen in the two doors on the ground main floor
that connect the two great halls.
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 Built
of black lava stone, this Norman fortress stands atop a spur of rock
high above the cobalt-blue sea, just outside Catania. Owing to its
strategic importance, it has been a fortified strong post since Roman
times, when this was the site of the Rocca Saturnia.
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 Maniace
Castle is an absolute must for anyone interested in military
constructions. It stands on the tip of the island of Ortygia, where it
was built in the first half of the 13th cent. by Frederick II's trusty
architect, Richard of Lentini, who also designed Ursino Castle in
Catania.
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 At
Portopalo, by the sea, one can still see traces of the old tuna fishery,
with its yard, its loggia, the factory with its furnace, the warehouses, the
house of the owners (the Bruno di Belmonte family), and this aristocratic
family's chapel, built in the 17th cent.
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 A
small, construction with a square tower at each corner, the Fort of
Vittoria was built by Frederick of Swabia in the second half of the 14th
cent. Over the centuries, and particularly under the Spanish domination
in the 16th cent., a number of structural modifications were made..
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CASTLES IN THE PROVINCE OF RAGUSA |
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 As
one proceeds along the road from Ragusa to Santa Croce Camerina, one can
admire Donnafugata Castle, an imposing construction immersed in one of
the most evocative carob woods in the whole province, the scene of
famous films including an episode in "The Jar" in the film Kaos,
directed by the Taviani brothers.
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 Racalmuto,
an agricultural town founded by the Arabs before the year 1000, spread
around the castle of the Chiaramonte family in the period following the
Norman conquest. The fortress was built in the days of the barony of
Robert Malcovenant, a Frenchman in the service of Roger de Hauteville.
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 EBuilt
in the 13th cent. by the Chiaramonte family, this construction is of
particular interest because it represents the transitional phase between
castle and palace. The Palace, as it is in fact commonly called because
of the square arrangement of its various parts, recalls the typical
lay-out of the Swabian castles.
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 The
first definite mention of the castle dates back to the time of the War
of the Sicilian Vespers, when the French soldiers stationed here were
killed and their bodies were displayed on the walls of the stronghold.
Built by the powerful Chiaramonte family, for which reason it is
referred to as the Chiaramontan castle.
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 Of
the 200 fortresses in the entire island of Sicily, indubitably the most
inaccessible and most impregnable of all is Mussomeli Castle. A
masterpiece of 14th- and 15th-cent. military architecture, it was built
by Manfredi III Chiaramonte, one of the four deputies who governed the
island during the reign of Queen Mary in the 1370s..
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 IOriginally
this was a tower granted in 1362 to the Santapau family of
Butera that subsequently passed to the Princes of Branciforti,
finally becoming the present-day Falconara Castle. In the last
two centuries in particular it has been variously modified with
a view to enlarging and embellishing it, leading to the result
one now sees today.
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CASTLES IN THE PROVINCE OF ENNA |
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 A
castle within a castle - that is how the impregnable Lombardia
Castle presents itself, with its pentagonal plan and square
towers, rising on the mountain that stands above Enna, a regal
fortification divided up by a series of inner yards and walls
that form three distinct courts.
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 The
name "Castelferrato" was added to Gagliano in 1862, because the town is
dominated by a fortified castle, locally known as the "iron castle
("castello ferrato"), that stands on the top of a crag some 650 metres
in altitude - the Rocca, the enormous mass towering high above the
houses.
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 This
fortress stands on a rocky crag in the Nebrodi Mountains that is riddled
with caves - its name comes from the Latin "spelunca", meaning a deep,
dark, natural cavern. Sperlinga Castle, built around 1082, makes full
use of the rock base it is built on, consisting as it does both of rooms
dug.
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Itineraries and Places to discover
The Nine
Province of Sicily
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