Location: Lucera, Foggia Province Map
Constructed: 1233
Lucera Castle is located in Lucera, Foggia Province in Italy. Lucera Castle was constructed in 1233 by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The site of Lucera Castle that was used was a former acropolis left from the Roman times. Much of the masonry was reused to constructed new military fortifications. Lucera Castle held a strategic location overlooking Apulia plain. Many Saracens (Arabs) were moved here from island of Sicily as an imperial policy of pacification of various nations that lived within borders of the Holy Roman Empire. Between 1269 and 1283 Charles I of Anjou improved walls to the citadel. In 1456 Lucera Castle was struck by an earthquake greatly damaging the walls and towers. Military technologies made the castle obsolete. It fell in disrepair and its ancient stones in turn were taken apart for construction of new buildings. In 18th century Lucera fortress was completely abandoned. Since the 19th century the site of Lucera Castle went under protection of the state. Only walls and towers remain standing today.
Over the centuries, the
summit of Colle Albano has always been considered a strategic
position, due to its domination on the Tavoliere di Puglia and its
defense on three sides by steep overhanging walls.
The hill
was inhabited since the third millennium BC: archaeological
research, carried out in 1964, has established the presence of a
Neolithic settlement.
Some ceramics are dated to the Daunian
period, documenting the occupation of the site in the Bronze Age. In
the nineteenth century the trolley of Lucera was found, a group of
bronzes with human and animal figures that probably make up a ritual
scene, dated to the eighth century BC. and perhaps originally
belonging to a funerary outfit. The bronzes, initially included in
the private collection of the lucerino Onofrio Bonghi, were later
passed almost all to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Site of
the acropolis of the Roman Lucera, of which today some
archaeological remains are preserved in the area adjacent to the
Torre della Leonessa, it later became a place of Christian worship:
the remains of an early Christian basilica are in fact documented.
The Palatium
From 1223 onwards, Frederick II deported the
Saracens of Sicily to Lucera, which thus became an important Muslim
settlement. After 1233, the emperor had his Palatium built on the
Albano hill. Unfortunately there is no document that certifies the
beginning or the end of the works.
Under Conrad IV of Swabia,
the commander of the fortress was Giovanni Moro, former servant of
Frederick.
Starting from 1268 until 27 August 1269, Charles I
of Anjou laid the siege of Lucera, which ended with the capture of
the Saracen city by starvation.
Between
September 1269 and 1283, Charles I of Anjou had the majestic
fortress built in two phases of the program, with a wall of about
900 meters in perimeter, incorporating the Palatium of Frederick II.
The birth of the military garrison sees the presence of
architects, such as Pierre d'Angicourt and Riccardo da Foggia.
Pierre de Chaulnes also worked on the factory and, in 1275, also
Nicola di Bartolomeo da Foggia.
Inside the fortress, a
military citadel was built, with the arrival of Provençal families,
and the construction of houses, barracks, a cistern and a Gothic
church, consisting of a rectangular wing and a semi-hexagonal apse .
As a construction material, the remains of Roman buildings still
present in the area were also used. The Christian citadel opposed
the Muslim settlement.
Between 15 and 24 August 1300, the
Saracen colony of Lucera was destroyed by the will of Charles II of
Anjou.
Following this, the decline of the fortress began,
which was gradually abandoned.
In the eighteenth century, the
buildings inside the fortress were demolished and, together with
parts of Frederick's Palatium, the resulting materials were used for
the construction of buildings in the historic center of Lucera: in
particular the Palace of Justice and the church and convent. of
Santa Maria del Carmine. It was even thought of selling the whole
area as a quarry for building material but there were no interested
buyers.
In the 19th century the first restorations of the
fortress began and in 1871 it was declared a National Monument.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the historian Eduard
Sthamer collected in a single publication all the Swabian documents
on the palace of Frederick II and the Angevins on the fortress of
Charles I of Anjou.
In 2000 the bridge over the moat was
inaugurated, in the place where the drawbridge was originally
present. This allowed access to the structure directly from Porta
Lucera, after centuries in which access was allowed only from Porta
Castel Fiorentino.
In recent years, the state of conservation
of the site has deteriorated, with various parts of the walls at
risk of collapsing.
After years of waiting, in 2016 the
Puglia Region allocated 3 million euros for the hydrogeological
instability of the hillside while, in 2017, the Ministry of Cultural
Heritage and Activities and Tourism allocated 2 million euros for
the restoration and enhancement of the Swabian-Angevin Fortress.
The Palatium Federiciano, of which today only a few underground fragments can be admired, was a square complex that rose for three floors, and developed around a central square courtyard. The courtyard on the third floor level had an octagonal shape, characteristics that closely resemble the most famous structure built by Frederick II in the area: Castel del Monte. In the courtyard of the Palatium, there is the presence of a well. The entrance door of the Swabian castle has not been found.
The quadrangular base, the truncated pyramidal
base, still visible today, results from the later projects of the
French, and does not have accesses at street level, so the question
arose as to how entry was possible. It has been assumed that the
entrance was made possible by the presence of stairs lowered from
above, while a more suggestive hypothesis (confirmed by the
discovery of underground galleries near the castle) proposes an
underground entrance as the access route. The absence of a door,
however, is significant of the strategic importance of the castle,
which in this way was more difficult to conquer.
The
irregular walls that surround the entire hill on which the fortress
stands is 900 meters long, 13 meters high, and also consists of 13
square towers, 2 pentagonal bastions, 7 buttresses and 2 cylindrical
angular towers: the Torre "della Leonessa" (on one of the shelves of
the Tower there are traces of the forelegs of a lioness, hence
probably the nickname of Torre della Leonessa), (or "della Regina"),
embattled, 25 meters high and 14 meters wide , and the Tower "del
Leone" (or "del Re"), 15 meters high and 8 meters wide.
Access to the fortress is allowed by four gates: Porta Lucera, Porta
Troia, Porta Guardiola and Porta Castel Fiorentino.
The
fortification enclosed a real military citadel, containing the
lodgings, a chapel, a cistern for collecting water and the bridge
over the moat, built in the Angevin period. The circular cistern is
located below the area between the Torre del Leone and Porta Lucera;
14 meters deep, it guaranteed the water reserve of the fortress.
In the Swabian-Angevin Fortress some scenes of the film The soldier of fortune (1976) by Pasquale Festa Campanile were shot.