Strutture fortificate dei ‘ghibellini’ Uberti in Sicilia nel XIV sec. Storia e ricognizioni di resti di strutture defensive

The defensive system is composed of castle complexes and boundary walls with towers or isolated elements, constituting systems of observation and communication or linked to farms or Casali, which function as visual control of land ownership. Although many studies have been developed on coastal defence tower systems, only some contributions have been made to the census of elements of inland, land defence or internal defences, which ceased in Sicily in their functions already in the 16th century. The study proposed is related to two isolated elements on the sites of two destroyed Casali in central Sicily (Fundrò and Rossomanno, in the province of Enna), attested as historically infatuated to a relevant family of Tuscan origin and of Ghibelline faith, the Uberti, among the protagonists of the medieval events in Sicily, from the end of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. The first element, in Fundrò, is currently associated with a Benedictine abbey founded in 1420, while the other structure, called locally “Torre or castellaccio degli Uberti”, in Rossomanno, is assumed to guard the homonymous ancient casale, destroyed in 1392.