Castles in Sicily: the Fortresses and Manors Worth Visiting

A journey devoted to the castles in Sicily takes you through a heritage of more than two hundred structures between manors, coastal watchtowers and urban walls, the result of a succession of dominations that left overlapping traces within the same building: Norman towers absorbed into Aragonese bastions, Swabian curtain walls reworked by Spanish engineers, feudal quarters turned into nineteenth century residences.

We take you to discover the most beautiful castles on the island, the ones that stand out for their historical weight, moving from the Norman constructions of the eastern side to the baronial fortresses of the inland districts, all the way to the military fortifications that rise above the sea.

Norman castles in Sicily: the castle of Aci and the keep of Paternò

On the Ionian coast north of Catania you should visit the castle of Aci, set on a promontory of columnar basalt formed by submarine lava flows that settled some five hundred thousand years ago. The building is told apart from the rock only by the regularity of its ashlar blocks. Access is through a masonry bridge that replaced the old drawbridge system, and the position reveals its historical role, that of commanding the stretch of sea between Catania and Capo Mulini, at a point where the coastline narrows.

Inside the civic museum of Acicastello you can follow a route that leads through archaeological finds ranging from prehistory to the medieval age, along with a mineralogical section devoted to the volcanic rocks of the territory and a botanical garden with species of the Etna flora and succulents. From the summit terrace your gaze can travel as far as the Faraglioni dei Ciclopi and Lachea island.

Further inland, on the south western slopes of Etna, stands the castle of Paternò: a rectangular donjon commissioned by Roger I around 1072, a little over thirty metres high, built in lava blocks alternating with courses of white stone and placed on a hill of volcanic origin that dominates the Simeto valley.

The structure preserves the multi level layout typical of Norman towers, with the ground floor used as a storehouse, the piano nobile as living quarters and the palatine chapel carved into the thickness of the walls. The pointed arch openings and the mullioned windows belong to later alterations. The complex hosts temporary exhibitions and remains one of the most effective panoramic points from which to observe the cone of Etna on its southern side.

Baronial fortresses of the interior: castle of Caccamo and castle of Mussomeli

About forty kilometres from Palermo stands the castle of Caccamo, perched on a rocky spur overlooking the San Leonardo basin and recognised as one of the best preserved fortified complexes on the island, with a total surface of fifteen thousand square metres.

Its original layout dates back to the Norman period, while the structure you see today comes from the enlargements carried out in the fourteenth century by the Chiaramonte family, and from the later works of the Cabrera and then the Prades, recognisable in the crenellation, in the added stables and in the creation of state rooms.

During the visit you can see the Salone della Congiura, where the barons gathered in 1160 to organise their revolt against William I, known as the Bad, together with the rooms with painted ceilings and the prisons cut into the living rock. The internal route unfolds along ramps and staircases that follow the shape of the limestone bank, and from the terraces you can look out over the Rosamarina dam.

In the heart of the province of Caltanissetta you can instead visit the Manfredonic castle of Mussomeli, whose masonry carries on the vertical line of the rocky ridge it rests upon, so much so that from a distance it becomes difficult to tell where the natural formation ends and human work begins.

Its construction is owed to Manfredi Chiaramonte, who around 1364 wanted a building that would hold together both a military function and a residential character, consistent with the role his family played in fourteenth century Sicily. The rooms open to visitors include the Hall of the Barons, the chapel with cross vaults, the chambers known as the Ladies’ Rooms and the outer walkways that follow the rocky perimeter.

Swabian military architecture by the sea: Castello Maniace in Syracuse and the castle of Milazzo

At the southern tip of Ortigia, positioned so as to control the Porto Grande and the Porto Piccolo at the same time, rises Castello Maniace, commissioned by Frederick II and built between 1232 and 1240 on a quadrangular plan with cylindrical corner towers. The element of greatest interest remains the marble entrance portal and the great hypostyle hall covered by cross vaults resting on columns, a space that combined defensive function with representative ambition according to the model of the Frederician foundations. The name comes from the Byzantine general George Maniakes, active in the area in the previous century.

On the Tyrrhenian side the castle of Milazzo is well worth a visit, since it is the largest fortified citadel in the whole of Sicily, with around seven hectares of total surface and a stratification that starts with the Greek acropolis, continues with the Arab fortification, consolidates with the Swabian keep of the Frederician age and expands, finally, with the fourteenth century Aragonese walls and with the Spanish circuit built during the sixteenth century according to defensive criteria suited to artillery.

Within the perimeter you will find the old cathedral of seventeenth century design, the Palazzo dei Giurati and the wide open spaces used for summer events. From the bastions the view reaches the Aeolian archipelago and the promontory of Capo Milazzo, with Vulcano and Lipari recognisable in the distance on the clearest days.

Rock cut castles and royal residences: Sperlinga and Montalbano Elicona

In the territory of Enna, on the edge of the Nebrodi mountains, stands the castle of Sperlinga, a rare case within the Mediterranean fortified landscape because most of its rooms are carved directly into the sandstone bank: corridors, stables, cisterns, grain silos and living quarters are hewn into the rock, while the masonry emerges only on the upper levels.

The place name derives from the Greek word spelunca, meaning cave, and the grottoes at the foot of the ridge were permanently inhabited until the middle of the twentieth century, and have since been recovered as an ethno anthropological museum. The fame of the site is tied to the historical events of the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, when the Angevin garrison held out here for more than a year under siege; the episode is recalled by the inscription placed on the entrance arch, which notes how Sperlinga alone denied what pleased the Sicilians.

On the mountains between Messina and the Nebrodi you can visit the castle of Montalbano Elicona, which shows the transformation of a defensive structure into a royal residence: the twelfth century Norman layout was reorganised by Frederick III of Aragon in the first decades of the fourteenth century, who turned it into a summer home and endowed it with the palatine chapel of Santa Maria Assunta, a space with a barrel vault and a royal burial on the lower floor.

The village below is part of the list of the most beautiful villages in Italy and preserves a compact medieval fabric, with stone houses and stepped alleyways.

The Castle of Donnafugata

Among the most famous fortified residences of the island is the Castle of Donnafugata, set in the countryside fifteen kilometres from Ragusa. Donnafugata stands for an age of seigneurial life, and behind the neo Gothic facade with its pointed arch loggia, commissioned by Baron Corrado Arezzo De Spuches in the second half of the nineteenth century, lies a fourteenth century core later expanded to the current one hundred and twenty rooms, about twenty of which can be visited with their original furnishings.

The eight hectare park includes a dry stone maze, the neoclassical coffee house, artificial grottoes and seats with water tricks typical of late nineteenth century taste. Two explanations circulate about the name: the popular one, which refers to the imprisonment of Bianca of Navarre, and the one now considered more reliable, which traces it back to the Arabic Ayn as Jafat, fountain of health. The building is also known for having been used as a film and television set, from The Leopard to the series devoted to Inspector Montalbano.

Ciao Sono Iolanda, Nel 2010 ho deciso di ritornare nella mia magica isola, la Sicilia, affinchè l’esperienza acquisita negli anni precedenti prendesse forma lì dove ero nata.

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