Castles
81 places
◆ CastlesCastel Capuano
zona Garibaldi
An old Norman castle that for four centuries served as the courthouse of Naples: here justice held session in frescoed halls, in the shadow of nearby Porta Capuana.
◆ CastlesPalazzo Donn'Anna
Posillipo
The unfinished seventeenth-century palace juts sheer over the water, dark and labyrinthine: through its empty rooms legend has the shadow of Donn'Anna still wandering.
CastlesCasina Vanvitelliana
Lago Fusaro, Bacoli
An octagonal pavilion that seems to float on Lago Fusaro, a Bourbon hunting lodge reached by a little bridge, among reflections and morning mists.
◆ CastlesPalazzo d'Avalos (ex carcere)
Terra Murata
First the palace of the d'Avalos family, then a prison until the late twentieth century: the empty cells command Terra Murata, suspended between the memory of the inmates and the silence that lives there now.
CastlesCastello Aragonese
Ischia Ponte
A fortress on a rocky islet tied to Ischia by a stone causeway, layered with millennia of history, the gaze ranging over the bay between walls, courtyards and gardens.
◆ CastlesTorre di Guevara
Ischia
Raised at the end of the fifteenth century on the meadow of Cartaromana, the tower also known as di Michelangelo faces the Castello Aragonese and the Sant'Anna rocks, and now frames art exhibitions.
CastlesTorre dello Ziro
Scala/Atrani
A cylindrical tower on a sheer ridge between Atrani and Amalfi; here legend walls up Giovanna d'Aragona, the last duchess, and her fate.
CastlesCastello di Arechi
Salerno
Perched on the Bonadies hill, it has watched over the gulf of Salerno for more than a thousand years: Lombard stone, crenellated towers and the sea stretching to the Costiera Amalfitana on the horizon.
◆ CastlesRocca Montis Dragonis
Mondragone
On Monte Petrino, a ruined medieval stronghold with square and round towers, from which the eye runs from Ischia to the headland of Circeo.
◆ CastlesVilla d'Ayala
Valva (SA)
In the park of Valva, a theatre of clipped hedges holds marble busts waiting in silence, among classical statues, grottoes and a small temple lost in the ancient woods.
◆ CastlesCastello di Lettere
Lettere (NA)
Perched on the Monti Lattari, the castle of Lettere watched over the Amalfi frontier: from its ruins the gaze runs from the Gulf of Napoli to the Sarno valley, beneath Vesuvius.
CastlesCastello di Limatola
Limatola (BN, confine casertano)
Above the borgo (old village), the Norman castle of Limatola dominates the Volturno valley; in winter its courtyards light up with lights and markets, among ancient walls and Renaissance loggias.
◆ CastlesCastello Lancellotti
Lauro (AV)
Set ablaze by the French in 1799 and revived in eclectic forms by the Lancellotti family, the castle of Lauro hides a small Italian garden within its walls.
CastlesMaschio Angioino (Castel Nuovo)
Napoli (NA)
Its cylindrical towers watch over the port, while the triumphal arch of white marble is set into the dark stone like a doorway to the Renaissance.
CastlesCastel dell'Ovo
Napoli (NA)
On the little islet of Megaride, the oldest fortress in Naples reaches out over the sea, wrapped in the legend of the egg hidden by Virgil in its foundations.
CastlesCastel Sant'Elmo
Napoli (NA)
A star-shaped fortress on the Vomero hill, from its ramparts it offers the widest view over the city, the gulf and Vesuvius on the horizon.
CastlesCastello di Baia
Bacoli (NA)
On the high promontory sheer above the gulf, the Aragonese castle guards the statues resurfaced from the submerged Roman city of the Campi Flegrei.
CastlesCastello Ducale di Sant'Agata de' Goti
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
In the borgo (old village) perched on the tufo (volcanic tuff) ridge, the ducal castle overlooks houses that seem to plunge into the ravine: silent courtyards, frescoes and time that seems to have stopped.
CastlesCastello di Montesarchio
Montesarchio (BN)
From the knoll dominating the Caudina valley, the cylindrical tower and the Bourbon prison recount centuries of history; inside, the Greek vases of the Sannio archaeological museum.
◆ CastlesCastello di Teggiano
Teggiano (SA)
Overlooking the Vallo di Diano, the borgo (old village) of Teggiano keeps its walls, bell towers and the Sanseverino castle, stage in the fifteenth century of the barons' conspiracy against the king of Naples.
◆ CastlesCastello della Leonessa
Montemiletto (AV)
At Montemiletto the Leonessa fortress commands the Calore valley with its cylindrical towers, among the best preserved in Irpinia.
◆ CastlesCastello di Zungoli
Zungoli (AV)
Zungoli climbs the tufo (volcanic tuff) with alleys and stairways, and beneath the houses opens a web of Byzantine caves where caciocavallo podolico cheese is aged.
CastlesRocca dei Rettori
Benevento (BN)
At the gateway to Benevento, the Rocca dei Rettori, once seat of the papal governors, watches over the city from its gardens, amid Lombard and Samnite memories.
◆ CastlesCastello di Faicchio
Faicchio (BN)
On a rocky spur above the Titerno valley, the ducal castle of Faicchio watches over the village with its Norman towers reworked through the centuries.
CastlesCastello di Casertavecchia
Caserta (CE)
In the medieval borgo (old village) of Casertavecchia stand the ruins of the castle and its cylindrical tower, overlooking the plain of Terra di Lavoro.
◆ CastlesCastello Aragonese di Aversa
Aversa (CE)
In Aversa, the first Norman county in Italy, the castle of Norman origin recalls the centuries when the city was the bridgehead of the conquest of the South.
◆ CastlesCastello di Sessa Aurunca (Ducale)
Sessa Aurunca (CE)
The ducal castle of Sessa Aurunca, born in the Lombard age on the ancient acropolis, today safeguards the mosaics and marbles that resurfaced from the city's Roman theatre.
◆ CastlesCastello di Rocca Cilento
Lustra (SA)
At Rocca Cilento, above Lustra, the Sanseverino castle was the heart of the Cilento barony and still takes in hills and sea at a glance.
◆ CastlesCastello di Bisaccia
Bisaccia (AV)
On a spur of Monte Calvario, the ducal castle dominates the borgo with its forty-two halls; here, so the story goes, Torquato Tasso was a guest at the end of the sixteenth century.
◆ CastlesCastello di Monteforte Irpino
Monteforte Irpino (AV)
On the hill of San Martino remain the walls and a circular tower of a Lombard castle where Charles of Anjou held his court for a few summers, now wrapped in the pinewood.
◆ CastlesPalazzo Serra di Cassano — il portone chiuso dal 1799
Napoli (NA)
On 20 August 1799 Gennaro Serra di Cassano was executed in Piazza Mercato for the Repubblica Napoletana. His father had the palace's monumental door barred. It has never been reopened since.
◆ CastlesPalazzo Penne — il patto col diavolo
Napoli (NA)
Antonio Penne wanted his palace built in a single night, and asked the devil for it in exchange for his soul. Then he cheated him with an impossible clause. The quills carved on the façade since 1406 are still there as a reminder.
◆ CastlesVilla Ebe e le Rampe Lamont Young
Napoli (NA)
Lamont Young dreamed of a Naples crossed by canals and underground railways. Nobody listened. In 1929 he shot himself inside this neo-Gothic castle built for his wife Ebe. In 2000 an arson fire devoured its interiors.
◆ CastlesCastello Aselmeyer
Napoli (NA)
A Tudor manor with turrets and mullioned windows, planted in the middle of Corso Vittorio Emanuele: Lamont Young's other English dream, built for British tourists who never came.
◆ CastlesTorre Palasciano
Napoli (NA)
A Florentine tower rising on the Capodimonte hill: it was wanted by Ferdinando Palasciano, the surgeon who cried "the wounded are sacred" and anticipated the Red Cross. They say his ghost still leans out to admire the bay.
◆ CastlesLacedonia e la Fortezza Pappacoda
Lacedonia (AV)
The last balcony of Irpinia before Puglia: from up here, at 730 metres, the gaze slides out over the Tavoliere plain. The Aragonese fortress dominates a borgo (old village) the earthquake emptied but did not extinguish.
◆ CastlesCastello d'Aquino di Grottaminarda
Grottaminarda (AV)
The Lombard-Norman stronghold of the d'Aquino family — the same family as Thomas Aquinas: restored, it commands the Ufita valley from a spur that has watched every army of the South go by.
◆ CastlesCastello di Avella (ruderi)
Avella (AV)
Above the Roman amphitheatre, the ruins of the Lombard-Norman castle crumble on a spur. One of the finest views in the Partenio, and almost nobody knows it.
CastlesCastello di Gioia Sannitica (Gioia Vecchia)
Gioia Sannitica (CE)
One of the best-preserved fortified villages in Campania, because after it was abandoned in the 1300s nobody ever lived there again. The wood reaches right up to the gate, and legend has it the janare (Benevento witches) gathered within these walls.
◆ CastlesTorre Normanna di Roccaromana
Roccaromana (CE)
An eighteen-metre cylinder of limestone, planted on Monte Castello since 1100: from up there the eye runs forty kilometres over the whole Volturno. Beside it, a chapel of 1190 guards frescoes that emerged from under the plaster only in 2016.
◆ CastlesCastello delle Pietre
Capua (CE)
The Norman keep of 1062 is made out of the Anfiteatro Campano: limestone blocks torn from the gladiators' tiers and reassembled into a fortress. Capua devoured itself in order to survive.
◆ CastlesCastello del Matinale
San Felice a Cancello (CE)
The stronghold of Tommaso d'Aquino guarding the mouth of the Suessola valley. Tradition tells of a tunnel dug to join it to the castle of Acerra: that, they say, is what brought the western flank down.
◆ CastlesCastello-Santuario di Casaluce
Casaluce (CE)
A Norman fortress of 1060 that a count of the Del Balzo family turned into a monastery to guard an impossible relic: two alabaster water jars that tradition says are those of the wedding at Cana. Inside, 14th-century frescoes of the Giottesque school and a Neapolitan organ that still plays.
◆ CastlesCasino del Principe (palazzo di Federico II)
Calvi (BN)
The last hunting lodge Frederick II had built in the South, out of spite towards the Pope: today a Gothic ruin on a hill above the Calore, split among five owners and forgotten by everyone.
- ◆ Castles
Palazzo Sansevero
P.za San Domenico Maggiore
On the corner of piazza San Domenico the palace of the princes of Sangro still carries the echo of the night when Gesualdo surprised and killed Maria d'Avalos and her lover.
- ◆ Castles
Castello e borgo
Roccadaspide (SA)
The castle looks down on the village and the Calore valley, between its towers and the stone alleys that drop towards the cultivated fields.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Acerra
Acerra (NA)
Built over a Roman theatre, the castle of the Counts dominates the square of Acerra: a mass of tufo (volcanic tuff) among towers and courtyards, where the medieval fortress became a lordly residence.
- Castles
Castello e Museo del Sannio Caudino (Cratere di Assteas)
Montesarchio (BN)
In the tower of the castle of Montesarchio is kept the Assteas krater: Europa fleeing on the bull, painted over two thousand years ago and recovered after a long journey through the black market.
- ◆ Castles
Taurasi: castello ed enoteca
Taurasi (AV)
In the village that gives its name to the great Aglianico, the marquis's castle houses the regional wine cellar: a long-lived red told among stone and barrels.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Gesualdo
Gesualdo (AV)
Among the hills of Irpinia rises the fortress of Prince Carlo Gesualdo, genius of the madrigal and of jealousy: stones that still guard his music and his crime.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Ruspoli (di Torella)
Torella dei Lombardi (AV)
Among the towers of Torella dei Lombardi, the Ruspoli castle holds a museum dedicated to Sergio Leone, whose roots run deep in this corner of Irpinia.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Prata Sannita
Prata Sannita (CE)
At Prata Sannita, along the waters of the Lete, the medieval castle lines up towers and battlements in the silent heart of the Matese.
- Castles
Castello dell'Abate
Castellabate (SA)
Founded in 1123 by the abbot of Cava, the castello dell'Abate crowns a Cilento village overlooking the sea, among alleys and wind-swept terraces.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Macchiaroli
Teggiano (SA)
At Teggiano the Sanseverino castle, now Macchiaroli, withstood the Aragonese siege during the barons' conspiracy, still dominating the Vallo di Diano.
- Castles
Castello Angioino-Aragonese
Agropoli (SA)
On the promontory of Agropoli the Angevin-Aragonese castle closes off the old town, its towers facing the gulf and the harbour below.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Giusso
Sicignano degli Alburni (SA)
At the threshold of the Alburni, the Giusso castle of Sicignano lines up its square towers above the village, where the plain meets the mountain.
- ◆ Castles
Carcere Borbonico di Montefusco
Montefusco (AV)
They called it the Spielberg of Irpinia: the old castle turned into a Bourbon prison for anti-Bourbon patriots, its cells and chains still telling of the harshness of that captivity.
- ◆ Castles
Torre di Casa Cumana
Casamicciola Terme (NA)
A sixteenth-century tower that survived the 1883 earthquake which in seconds razed Casamicciola and killed over two thousand people. It still stands there, while the town around it has been entirely rebuilt.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Longobardo di Castelvetere sul Calore
Castelvetere sul Calore (AV)
A Lombard stronghold clinging to a rocky spur above the Calore, with alleys that seem carved out of the living stone. From the belvedere the eye runs over the Aglianico vineyards all the way to the ridges of the Terminio.
- ◆ Castles
Palazzo Ducale Orsini di Solofra
Solofra (AV)
The palace of the dukes who made Solofra the capital of tanning: from here they ruled an empire of leather that sold as far as Venice and the Levant.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Cavaniglia e Palazzo Tenta
Bagnoli Irpino (AV)
The stronghold of the Cavaniglia, lords of black truffle and beech forests, and beside it the palazzo that today is the memory house of Bagnoli.
- Castles
Castello di Tufo e le miniere di zolfo
Tufo (AV)
Beneath the vine rows that give the Greco di Tufo open the tunnels of the sulphur mine: it was that gypsum and that sulphur, they say, that taught the wine its minerality. The castle has watched over the Sabato valley for a thousand years.
- ◆ Castles
Palazzo Filangieri di Lapio
Lapio (AV)
The Filangieri stronghold suspended above the kingdom of Fiano: from up here the vineyards step down to the Calore like a green amphitheatre.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Montefredane
Montefredane (AV)
A broken Norman tower on a cone of rock: below, the whole basin of Avellino. Climbing up at sunset is the closest thing to a privilege that Irpinia knows how to offer.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Biondi-Morra e casa natale di Francesco De Sanctis
Morra De Sanctis (AV)
In the castle, they say, a young Torquato Tasso once slept; a few steps away Francesco De Sanctis was born, the man who invented the Italian way of reading literature. A village of 1,200 people with two claims to fame.
- ◆ Castles
Montefalcione Vecchio (ruderi del castello)
Montefalcione (AV)
The old village, destroyed and never lived in again, leaves only walls and an immense view: below, the whole of Irpinia; above, the falcons that gave the place its name.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Cervinara
Cervinara (AV)
The keep that watches over the Valle Caudina, the same valley where the Romans passed under the Forks: from up here, betrayal could be seen coming.
- ◆ Castles
Torre di Nanno
Calitri (AV)
A lone tower in the hills of the Ofanto, with no road and no name on the maps: one of those places you find only if someone tells you.
- ◆ Castles
Castello e borgo abbandonato di Rupecanina
Sant'Angelo d'Alife (CE)
A ghost village suspended on the cliff: 800 metres of walls, five towers and the empty houses of those who fled after the 1456 earthquake and never came back. The Norman Drengot ruled the whole Alife plain from here.
- ◆ Castles
Torre Pandone e borgo di Valle Agricola
Valle Agricola (CE)
Four peaks, stone alleys and a Lombard tower with the Pandone coat of arms still set into the wall. This is where the transhumance climbs up from the Lete, and where you come back down with a pecorino cheese worth the trip.
- Castles
Castello di Riardo e borgo medievale
Riardo (CE)
A Lombard manor with its pentagonal tower dominates the Savone plain; below, the paved alleys climb in steps up to the walls, like a stairway towards the wind.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Marzano Appio
Marzano Appio (CE)
A frontier castle suspended between the crater of Roccamonfina and the Volturno valley, where the wind still carries the echo of the Lombard sentries.
- ◆ Castles
Torre di Sasso e ruderi di San Biagio
Castel di Sasso (CE)
A stump of a tower and a roofless church, side by side, guarding a village that has almost ceased to exist. It is the kind of ruin you will find in no guidebook.
- ◆ Castles
Castello Ducale di Castel Campagnano
Castel Campagnano (CE)
From the courtyard you can go down in two directions: one way a cellar hand-dug into the tufo (volcanic tuff), finished in 1777; the other a rock-cut church dedicated to the Archangel.
- Castles
Castello e Torre Artus di Maddaloni
Maddaloni (CE)
You climb from the old town by stairways and stone portals, past votive shrines wedged into the walls, up to the two Norman towers keeping watch over the plain. Below, cisterns dug into the dark.
- ◆ Castles
Castello ducale di Casalduni
Casalduni (BN)
It survived the 1688 earthquake that razed the village, but not memory: in August 1861 Casalduni burned along with Pontelandolfo, and the cylindrical tower still stands there like an inconvenient witness.
- ◆ Castles
Palazzo Ducale Montalto
Fragneto Monforte (BN)
A Lombard fortress with four corner towers, tamed in the sixteenth century into a Renaissance residence. In October, from the meadow below the village, hot-air balloons rise above its battlements.
- ◆ Castles
Castello dei Baroni di Puglianello
Puglianello (BN)
Yellow tufo (volcanic tuff), four cylindrical towers with battered bases: in 1462 it withstood the siege of Ferrante of Aragon, today it mostly withstands indifference. Every May the village re-enacts that siege.
- ◆ Castles
Castello di Circello
Circello (BN)
The Lombard-Norman keep dominates the village and the old drove road: from up here the gaze slides across the Alto Tammaro all the way to the mountains of Molise.
- ◆ Castles
Ruderi del Castello di Montefalcone di Val Fortore
Montefalcone di Val Fortore (BN)
At 800 metres, the highest village in the Benevento Fortore clings to a castle reduced to a skeleton: on clear days, from up there, you can see the Gargano.
- ◆ Castles
Palazzo Lembo e le grotte ipogee
Baselice (BN)
Built on the ruins of an anti-Saracen castle: frescoes, a hanging garden with its ice house, a cylindrical tower, and caves dug into the tufo (volcanic tuff) that open onto immense views.