Elementi fortificati nelle Masserie della Piana di Sibari in Calabria. Letture storico-architettoniche-costruttive di alcuni tipi

The essay proposes knowledge of the farms present in the Sibari Plain in Calabria, through historical-critical and typological-constructive readings. In particular, the study focuses on the residential-agricultural-productive complexes which, presenting in their composition defensive elements (defense towers, fortified dwellings, walls to delimit the courtyards of rural structures) dotted the largest plain of Calabria in a period between the 17th and 19th centuries. The paper focuses, in the first part, on the significant characteristics of the type of farmhouse present in the Piana, highlighting the compositional-constructive and social-economic panorama in which they developed, and in a second part it presents some fortified types, examining their formal, typological, functional and constructive specificities.The presence of fortified elements in the rural systems of the Sibaritide area was linked to the control of the territory, to the danger of pirate raids, to the need to protect the lord's residence, the production premises - mills, presses, tanneries, etc. -, the harvest and the animals. From the readings carried out and the comparison between the different types analysed, we want to trace the recurring signs of these architectures, some of which are, today, in a state of degradation and appear deprived of their functions. Through their knowledge, we intend to prefigure scenarios of conservation of the peculiar characteristics and of possible re-conversion of these architectures to the advantage of contemporaneity.