L'architettura rurale fortificata in Sicilia

Abstract

The presence of a difensive system has always been something necessary to control the coastline and to defend the island from the pirat raids. Would be enough to walk along the sicilian coastline to find some of the 218 coast tower and understand how those were only the first line of fortified landascapes, whose actual fisionomy is the result of evolutionary processes occurred over the centuries. The present article wants to be a focus on the rural fortified architecture of Sicily and especially of the Madonie area, where the secolar control of the power from the Ventimiglia nobiliar family has produced a cultural and economical compactness obtained also by the construction of coast towers, castels and fortified masserie. The comprehension of the analyzed landscape has been possible after a deep process of knowledge of the traditional architecture of the Madonie area, that has been useful to understand how despite the constructive semplicity those architectural example represents the principal elements of a landscape characterized by a specific idea of placing the architecture and their constant connection with the surrounding nature. Those two factors denotes the voluntee to realize an insediative system useful to increase the control of the territory. This patrimiony which in part has been lost, partially recovered or converted to a new use, let us to talk about the Madonie area as a fortified landscape.