Amantea Castle

About

The Amantea Castle (formerly Regio castello di Amantea) is located in the town of the same name, in the province of Cosenza, in the lower Tyrrhenian Sea of Cosenza. Dominating the coastal road and the road to Cosenza that runs along the Catocastro River valley, it was once an important stronghold under the Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Angevins and Aragonese. It was restored in the viceregal period and under the Bourbons, but suffered severe damage during the earthquakes of 1638 and 1783; it was left in a state of neglect after the disastrous 1806-1807 siege suffered by Napoleonic troops. Currently the castle is in ruins, and access to the remains on the hill overlooking the city is strenuous and dangerous. In 2008, ownership of the surrounding area was acquired by the City of Amantea.

In ancient times the city of Lampeteia or Clampetia, a probable Crotonian colony also inhabited by indigenous Bruttian people, stood in Amantean territory. This city, already decaying in the imperial age, was wiped out by the earthquake and tidal wave of 365: a new city, Nepetia ("new city" or "new camp" in Greek), arose in its vicinity. Nepetia was occupied by the Byzantines and after 553 it was the seat of a military governorate and a stronghold on the northern borders of the theme of Calabria. It was therefore the Byzantines who first fortified the site of present-day Amantea: however, the present name was given to the town by Arab rule. In 846, in fact, Nepetia was conquered by the Arabs of Sicily and renamed "Al-Mantiah," "the fortress." Amantea remained Arab for forty years, and was the seat of an emirate: the name of only one emir is known, As-Sinsim, latinized as Cincimo, who in 868 went so far as to attempt the conquest of Cosenza. The Byzantines reconquered the city in the year 272 of the Hijrah, that is, 885-886. Amantea became an episcopal see, and in the 10th century it incorporated into its diocese the territory of the episcopal see of the now-decayed city of Temesa. The Emir of Sicily Abu l-Qasim Ali reconquered Amantea in 976, and it was again under Arab rule until 1031-1032, when it was again occupied by the Byzantines.

The Normans conquered Amantea in 1060-1061, driving out the Byzantines once and for all. In 1094 the diocese of Amantea was aggregated with that of Tropea, as part of the Latinization of cults in southern Italy desired by the papacy and the Norman rulers. During Norman rule Amantea decayed, replaced as an important center of control of the territory by nearby Aiello Calabro. Under Swabian rule the castle was strengthened, as part of the plan of repopulation of the coastal areas desired by Frederick II. By virtue of the Swabian good governance, Amantea and other castles in the area (Aiello, Cleto) tenaciously resisted the new French-born ruler Charles I of Anjou: the latter sent Count Pietro Ruffo of Catanzaro to reconquer the city, which resisted the overwhelming Angevin forces throughout May 1269, before capitulating in mid-June of that year. The rebels were almost all atrociously punished. To keep any future revolts at bay, the Angevins built the castle of Belmonte Calabro on Amantean territory, the core around which the town of the same name would develop. Amantea was at the center of the events of the so-called "ninety-year war" between Anjou and Aragon for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, which followed the casus belli of the Sicilian Vespers. The Amorotan population was of Aragonese tendency; the castle, defended by two hundred men and well supplied with provisions by the Angevin loyal castellans, was besieged by the Aragonese fleet and army in 1288, and capitulated on honorable terms. The castle returned to the Angevins by virtue of the Peace of Caltabellotta in 1302: after a period of retaliation against the Amanteans for their Aragonese faith, the city obtained from the last Angevin-Durassic rulers important exemptions and privileges that brought an increase in population. In 1391 Ladislaus of Naples enfeoffed Amantea to the doge of Genoa Antoniotto Adorno, as a restitution of loans granted to him by the latter. In any case, in 1425 Louis III of Anjou decreed Amantea and its castle inalienable possessions of the royal domain. René of Anjou nevertheless granted the fiefdom again to Margaret of Poitiers, second wife of the Marquis of Catanzaro Niccolò Ruffo, and in 1458, on the death of Alfonso I of Aragon, the first Aragonese ruler of Naples and Sicily, the Amanteans rose up against the enfeoffment, siding with the Angevin pretender to the Neapolitan throne, John II of Anjou. Eventually King Ferdinand I of Naples moved the feudatory Margaret of Poitiers from Amantea to Rende, and the revolt returned, but Amantea was the last of the Calabrian castles to return under Aragonese control. Amantea also risked being enfeoffed in the seventeenth century, on two occasions, due to the constant depletion of viceregal coffers: the first by the prince of nearby Belmonte Giovanni Battista Ravaschieri in 1630-1633, and the second by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando II de' Medici in 1647. On both occasions the population proudly defended its status as a state town, even moving to the court in Madrid. Under the Aragonese, the castle was entrusted to the Carafa family, dukes of Maddaloni. In 1489 the castle was visited by Alfonso II of Naples, on an inspection trip to the castles of his kingdom: the sovereign was welcomed by the castellan Giovanni Tommaso Carafa, and visited the church and convent of San Bernardino da Siena. During the brief interlude of the occupation of Charles VIII of France (1496-1498), the castellan Giovanni Tommaso Carafa had to side with the French, but the population sent a delegation to pay homage to the ousted Aragonese ruler Ferrante of Aragon, who had taken refuge in Ischia. At the end of the Aragonese dynasty, a war broke out between France and Spain for the possession of territories in southern Italy; Amantea sided with the Spaniards: in 1504 during the war 85 Spaniards led by Gomez de Solis landed on the Amantean beaches, pushing inland to give aid to the Spanish garrison in Cosenza besieged by the French. Eventually the war was won by the "Catholic king" Ferdinand II of Aragon, and Naples became a Spanish viceroyalty.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.