The castle stands at the highest point of Viggianello, and every power that passed through left a layer. The first fortified settlement was Roman: a castrum controlling the valley below and the road junctions on the Serra hill, already used by the Achaeans. The Byzantines made it the administrative centre of the kastrion, a walled perimeter that also enclosed the farming village grown up between the Cella and Ravita quarters. The Normans raised the solid square-based tower and put the ring walls back up; the Swabians enlarged the structure and decorated it with the friezes typical of Frederick's art.
What to see
Under Angevin and Aragonese rule the keep grew considerably and became the military and administrative centre of a wide territory. In the 15th century it was stormed by the Great Captain Gonzalo de Córdoba and ended up among the possessions the Spanish monarchy held in Italy. In the 16th century the Sanseverino princes, with no more need of defence, turned the fortress into a palace: it is from them that the castle takes the name it still carries.
The old cistern survives. Of the secret passage that local tradition says ran through the bowels of the town down to the Carella channel, to get the lords of the castle out in case of siege, no trace has ever been found. Inside these walls, in 1806, the French general Grasson took refuge with his garrison, pursued by the brigand Muscariello at the head of a pro-Bourbon band.
Visiting
You walk up through the alleys and small squares of the old town, which is made of separate clusters of houses: an unusual settlement pattern, documented at least since the maps of 1797. Look first for the square-based Norman tower, the most recognisable part. Of the village walls only scattered traces are left. A short way off stand the ruins of the church of San Nicola, the oldest in Viggianello, derelict for some decades but still carrying the marks of its frescoes.
Our editors' tip
Go down from the castle towards the Cella and Ravita quarters: among the houses you can pick out the remains of the walls of the Byzantine kastrion, the perimeter that held fortress and farmers together. This is the oldest part of the village, and those stones are the piece of the Byzantine enclosure you can still read.