The book that the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi handed to Roger II in 1154, the Book of Roger, dates the founding of the castle of Grottole to 604 and credits it to the Lombards of Benevento; another tradition, reported by Tommaso Andreucci, moves it to 851 and ties it to Siconolfo, prince of Salerno, right after the Lucanian lands were split between the principalities of Salerno and Benevento. His name is the one the castle still carries. The fortress sits at 540 metres, on a knoll entirely detached from the town, once known as Contrada della Motta, and from up there it keeps watch over the Basento and Bradano valleys.
What to see
Motta is not a random place name: in medieval defensive architecture it means the mound, natural or raised with earth dug out of the ditch, protected first by earth-and-timber works and later by walls. Cut off from the village, the castle could serve at best as a lookout; the inhabitants defended themselves inside their own town wall, of which only a few stretches of stone survive, scattered about, along with four or more towers now bent out of shape by time. The most recognisable of them became the clock bell tower of the church of Santi Luca e Giuliano, the Chiesa Diruta, which swallowed it whole.
There is a remarkably detailed written portrait of the castle: the survey drawn up on 1 September 1894 for the Potenza branch of the Banca d'Italia. It records 1500 square metres in all, nineteen rooms on the ground floor and twenty-eight upstairs, walls of limestone mixed with tuff bound in lime-and-sand mortar, brick vaults and a tiled roof laid over their extrados. The square-plan tower measures 21 metres, the rest of the building ten. Inside, in the room before the entrance to the tower, stands a large fireplace crowned by a stucco shell holding a coat of arms, perhaps that of the Sanseverino of Bisignano; on the vaults and walls of the adjoining rooms frescoes can still be made out, buried under layers of plaster.
Visiting
The way up is Salita Castello, where the prisons were built at the start of the climb, on the right, later turned into houses. The main door is arched and faces west: it opens into a small covered courtyard, from which a vaulted passage leads to the open one. There three steps and a landing branch into two staircases; the left one climbs to an open gallery with an iron railing, carried on piers and masonry arches, running along three sides of the courtyard. On the ground floor, under a broad arch resting on a column, are the ruined wood oven where bread was baked and a stone trough-washbasin; cellar and stable occupy the underground rooms.
Our editors' tip
Look for the big window of the keep facing the village and stop there: it is Abufina's window. In the Grottole legend she embroidered beside it while waiting for Selepino, gone off to fight far away, and drowned in the Basento as she rode to reach him. The lord of the castle had the door of her room walled up and a memorial stone set in place, fragments of which could still be read in the early twentieth century. Those who believe the story say she appears on moonlit nights in spring and in June: go then.