This castle is not on the summit. The top of the hill is higher up, and the Sanseverino fortress was built a good deal lower, leaning on the slope: a choice that can be explained in only one way, that what they wanted to keep an eye on was not the horizon but the town below.
What to see
You enter by a large rectangular portal on the west side, passing through a room with a cross vault entirely of brick. The L-shaped plan, on three levels one of which is a semi-basement, was not born that way: it is the result of successive enlargements starting from an original tower, the way nearly all hilltop fortresses grew.
Between the two arms opens a courtyard closed by the same fortified enclosure, and from there you pass inside two of the towers of the eastern wall. In the middle of the courtyard the well that collected rainwater is still there. The castle is of Norman date, and the Norman-Swabian expansion of the town lies immediately downhill: the settlement grew from the fortress downwards.
Visiting
The castle is in the old centre of Chiaromonte, above the valley of the Sinni; openings depend on the municipality's initiatives and on the season, so it is worth asking first. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Stop at the well in the courtyard. In a hilltop fortress without a spring, the cistern is what decides everything: how long you hold out in a siege is settled not by the walls but by the litres of rainwater you managed to put by. It is the least spectacular part of the castle and it is the one the rest depended on.
