IN SICILY: RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES

Frederick’s castles in Sicily: general framework

(Carlo

Tosco)

Several castles built at the behest of Emperor Frederick II in Sicily have survived with varying degrees of preservation. While the castles of Catania and Syracuse can receive visitors, others like Augusta, have been left in a state of abandonment. Various studies have been carried out on the Sicilian castles, which now have a rich bibliography,6 but still lack stratigraphic analyses, carried out according to the principles of architectural archaeology. In this essay, we will present the castles of Syracuse, Augusta, Catania and Enna, limiting our attention to the most important and best preserved fortified structures built by the emperor in Sicily (fig. 1)

Frederick preferred to reside in the region of Capitanata, in Apulia, where Castel del Monte is located, and only spent short periods of his reign in Sicily. His stay on the island is divided into three phases: childhood and adolescence at the court of Palermo, the suppression of the Saracen revolts

1. Architecte et professeur d’histoire de l’architecture, Politecnico di Torino.

2. Architecte, docteur en histoire de l’architecture, università degli studi di Palermo.

3. Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, università di Catania.

4. Architecte, docteur en archéologie du bâti, Aix-Marseille Université.

5. Architecte paysagiste, Politecnico di Torino.

6. The bibliography on Frederick II is very extensive, and the standard reference is the Enciclopedia fridericiana, edited by O. Zecchino and published by the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, vol. I-II, Rome, 2005, available online. An important event for publications took place in 1994, with the celebrations of the eighth centenary of the emperor’s birth. For a historiographical overview: D’Onofrio 2003, p. 127-147; Knaak 2001. For the history and architecture of Sicilian castles, the most recent works include: Calò Mariani, Cassano 1995; Di Stefano, Cadei 1995; Cadei 2006; Martin 2009, p. 251-269; Maurici 2014; Safonte 2016; Pistilli, Gianandrea 2020, p. 115-134; Tosco 2021, p. 73-116.

Furthermore, studies are currently underway on the lapidary marks (stonemasons’ marks): the first results of the research at the Castle of Maniace have revealed over a hundred marks, not counting the so-called ‘derived’ signs.18 The comparative analysis of these marks in various Sicilian and Swabian continental buildings will allow us to examine in greater depth the dynamics of the building sites and the mobility of the workers who were the material protagonists of Frederick II’s imperial project.19

18. The data comes from the archaeometric study of stonemasons’ marks engraved during the restoration of Maniace Castle in Syracuse (a. 1999, L’isola, laboratori di restauro). See also Zoric 1995, II, p. 409-413.

19. For a first approach to the subject, see Linguanti 2018, p. 104115.

The castle of Augusta (Alessandra Panicco)

The Swabian castle was built on the highest grounds of the island of Maremorto from 1232 and building continued for about a decade.20 It dominated the harbour opening into Augusta, a city situated on the territory between Catania and Syracuse (fig. 5). A series of rebellions had indeed taken hold of Sicily at the beginning of the 13th century, hence the need to erect fortified structures useful for the control of urban centres, the