Castello-Recinto

This fortress, a rough pentagon in plan, makes brutal use of its site. On the west, it exploits a steep escarpment; to the east, a gentler slope. The walls rise directly from the rock, and the west-facing façade, the least accessible side, is a blank, windowless face without even arrow slits. The triangular keep anchors the defences, with two stretches of wall linking it to stout towers. The battlements are flush, unbroken by loopholes. The wall-walk has collapsed. To the east, one tower is partly hewn from the living rock.

From the keep, the enclosure wall once ran in a rough quadrilateral, two sides parallel, two diverging towards the valley. The weakest points are reinforced by a series of circular towers, linked by a wall-walk. Four towers stand on the northern and eastern sides. The absence of a battered base to the walls suggests a late Norman date: a period when military architecture was still experimental, relying more on commanding position than on sophisticated defensive engineering.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.