Fortificazioni dei Regni di Napoli e di Sicilia: progressi degli studi e cattivi restauri

The bibliography on the fortifications of southern Italy in recent years has thickened, increasing and refining our knowledge thanks to the discovery of new documents, the identification of the roles played in the project by figures already known and others previously ignored, new and more precise surveys and analysis of wall structures along with restorations and restoration projects that have been the subject of many graduate theses.Added to these studies is the reporting of the many fortification drawings studied and exhibited in Naples in 2020, but which for various reasons deserve further scholarly attention.These are twenty-one drawings of fortifications partially related to the Mediterranean world, while others are pertinent to continental Europe.Four drawings are related to Palermo, Syracuse, Vieste, and Taranto.Alongside the fundamental research of archival sources, mention should be made of the substantial innovations that came from the reception even in the field of architecture of the methods and tools of the archaeology of the elevated, borrowed from the medieval area.However, while research and study are being done, restoration methods are being theorized, some castles are being transformed and debased in their architectural value by imaginative renovations as, for example, scandalously happened to the Castle of Rocca Cilento, reinvented in its forms without the intervention of the authorities in charge of protection.