The Tower of Manfria is a coastal watchtower that stands on a hill above Manfria, a seaside hamlet of Gela about 12 kilometres from the main town, and can be seen from all over the gulf of Gela. It was part of the warning system of the coastal towers of Sicily, built following the plans of the Florentine architect Camillo Camilliani, and gives the hamlet its name.
What to see
The Spanish government decided to raise a series of towers along the shore to protect the coastal towns of Sicily from attacks by enemies and African corsairs: a watch system that allowed dangers to be signalled across the whole island. Construction of the Manfria tower began in 1549, under the viceroy Giovanni De Vega, though the date is not entirely certain; in 1578 the tower is recorded as still unfinished, in contrada Sferracavallo, and it was resumed and completed to a design by Camillo Camilliani, who prepared a watercolour of it: a circular tower with a battered base and a crenellated parapet. Camilliani judged it very well suited to defence, since it communicated to the north with the castle of Butera, to the east with the castle of Gela and to the west with that of Falconara. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century it was almost entirely rebuilt to its present appearance, probably at the impulse of the viceroy Pedro Girón, Duke of Osuna: for this reason it is also remembered as the Torre d'Ossuna, besides the Torre di Sferracavallo.
It is one of the largest Camilliani towers: about 15 metres high, with a base of about 12.50. In the eighteenth century the garrison was four soldiers and a superintendent chosen among the knights of Terranova, the old name of Gela; one of the superintendents, Mariano Carpinteri e Gravina, had the outside two-flight staircase built in 1805, which can still be seen today. In 1867 the tower was included among the military works to be decommissioned. Today it is privately owned and in fair condition, apart from a few collapsed stretches of the terrace cornice.
Visiting
The tower stands on the hill above Manfria and can be seen from all over the gulf. Since it is privately owned, the sources consulted do not say that its interior can be visited: it is best to admire it from outside and to ask the Comune di Gela.
Our editors' tip
The tower is tied to the legend of the giant Manfrino, good and unlucky, guardian of a hidden treasure, which grew out of the finding of Greek and Roman coins in the area and of a rock formation, still visible among the vegetation, read as the hoofprint of his horse. Manfrino lived with his sister, called «la bella Castellana»: he chased on horseback a very beautiful fair-haired woman, who vanished; when she reappeared at the feast given by his sister, the nobles, who coveted the tower and its estate, plotted and killed him and the Castellana.
