Things to do in Squillace, Calabria: The Best Sights & Landmarks

The Castle of Squillace dominates the town from the highest point of the hill . It was built by the Normans in the second half of the 11th Century, at the end of the campaign of conquest of Calabria made by the Byzantines who occupied the region, and in general southern Italy, for over five centuries. Squillace during the Norman era is the administrative, political and religious centre on the Ionic coast. It's here that Ruggero d'Altavilla gives to San Bruno from Cologne the land where it will be later built the Carthusian Monastery of Serra San Bruno. The Norman period is definitely the most important for Squillace, living a moment of great political, administrative, economic and religious fervor.From an architectural point of view, the Castle is expression of the typical Norman style of construction: they build with local stone (which here is granite) and not with brick (like mostly Romans and Byzantine were building) and adopt their castle's model organized around the Donjon, a large rectangular tower of more than 10 m wide that is a fortress itself (1). The building was immediately made of stone unlike other castles in Calabria, as the Motte of Scribla and San Marco Argentano, which hosted first a wooden tower replaced at the end of the 11th Century with one of stone. The tower consisted of a closed ground floor, most probably used as a storage place for food, the first floor, to welcome guests and to host meetings, a private area at the second floor and a crenellated terrace. The Donjon gives us an outstanding image of the fortification that protects and look after the underlying city as a symbol of the feudal power.