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. Located some 2 km from the town of Mussomeli and distributed at various heights up to 780 metres, it appears as an integral part of a rocky limestone crag that towers in solitary isolation above the countryside of Caltanissetta, a province scattered everywhere with castles.

The fortress is surrounded by an irregular boundary wall that exploits to the utmost every natural feature offered by the rock face, with the result that the part built by man blends imperceptibly into that created by nature.

The outer façade of the castle is rich in decorations, with its great gate and its windows covered in Gothic ornamentation. The interior, which one reaches through an ogival-arch door, also leaves one breathless.

Certainly worth a visit are the lofty cross-vaulted halls, the Barons' Hall (the main features of which are the fine portals in pure Chiaramontan style and two two-light windows), the "Prison of Death", where the condemned were lowered through a trapdoor and drowned, and the Chapel, where a statue is kept, "Our Lady of the Chain", which prisoners implored for grace.

One final point of interest comes from a peculiarity of Mussomeli Castle's structural design: it has an abundance of triangular rooms - these connect the rooms on each side of the polygon with the adjoining stairs.

Details of the Mussomeli Castle

(click on the photos to enlarge)