Castles in southern Italy, diagnostic plan for knowledge and the enhancement

Abstract

[EN] In the south of Calabria in Italy, along the Tyrrhenian coast, lie fortifications of great historical and architectural importance which all enjoy strategic positions owing to their landscapes and wide view of the sea. Over time, such a peculiarity, which was originally the result of the need to defend the territory from foreign raids from the sea, has become a feature favouring tourist attractiveness. Worth mentioning are Sant’Aniceto fortress, the Castle of Fiumefreddo, the Castle of Cleto, and the Castle of Belvedere, which enshrine historical legacies of the Calabrian fortification system. The study examines such architectural examples focusing not only on their historical and architectural dimension, but also on the types of construction, on the materials and on the current state of conservation of the castles concerned. Therefore, a particular diagnostic plan was developed for each building, which started from the environmental contextualization, reconstructed the anamnesis and, finally, examined constituent materials and their level of deterioration. The results of a laboratory analysis, which was carried out on micro-samples of material taken noninvasively, are shown with reference to a few representative elements.