The Bastione di Malta (Malta Bastion) is a tower in the territory of Lamezia Terme. It differs from most of the southern Italian coastal towers in the thickness of its walls, several metres, which makes it fit to withstand firearms.
What to see
It was built around 1550, when the viceroy of Naples Don Pedro de Toledo, on the order of the Spanish crown, required the communities to strengthen at their own expense the coastal defences against raids by Barbary corsairs. It was commissioned by Fabrizio Pignatelli, marquis of Cerchiara, to a design by military engineers. It stands isolated and was once close to the coast, guarding a river landing at the mouth of the Angitola; today it is about eight hundred metres from the shoreline, because of alluvial silting and twentieth-century reclamation. It stood near a Benedictine abbey that passed in the sixteenth century to the Knights of Malta, who had held a fief at nearby Sant'Eufemia since the twelfth century.
The structure is compact, a truncated pyramid on a square base with a square tower above; inside are four large barrel-vaulted rooms, and a terrace within the battlements holds three smaller rooms. It could hold many soldiers, horses and cannon. As an outpost it stayed active only a few years: the earthquake of 1638, which almost completely destroyed the abbey, began the decline of the bailiwick too, and in 1783 another quake worsened the damage. With the sale of ecclesiastical property ordered by Joseph Bonaparte in 1806 the bastion passed to private owners; in the summer of 1943 the Italian army set up an anti-aircraft position on the terrace. It has remained in exceptional condition for a coastal tower.
Visiting
The bastion is on the Lametino plain, not far from the ruins of the abbey: the sources say the abbey's archaeological site is open to the public. Declared of cultural interest by a decree of 2007, it belongs to the Comune after an expropriation concluded in 2013. Hours and visiting arrangements are not given by the sources consulted: check them.
Our editors' tip
Over the door of the square tower, on the east façade, look for the coat of arms of the bailiff of Sant'Eufemia, Fra Signorino Gattinara: the inscription, dated 1634, credits him with equipping the bastion with war machines. The bastion also appears in stylised form in the coat of arms of the city of Lamezia Terme.
