The castle of Marsala is a medieval castle of Norman origin, which in the past was used as a prison.
What to see
The castle arose in the eastern corner of the city, where the two arms of the Punic moat meet, in a raised position above the slope of the city and with a large open space in front, free of buildings. Founded perhaps only as a fortified enclosure in the Norman period, though it cannot be ruled out that a Byzantine fortress was already there, it was reinforced in the Swabian period, as the pseudo-trapezoidal plan and some stylistic elements attest, such as the ribs of a room of the round tower, typical of Frederician architecture. Today the castle is occupied by nineteenth-century buildings along the Punic moat.
A letter of 1239 sent from Lodi by Frederick II of Swabia, in which he urges the justiciar beyond the Salso not to carry out renovations in the castles of Trapani, Marsala, Mazara and Sciacca and to entrust their maintenance to trusted citizens to prevent their ruin, shows that the castle existed at the start of the thirteenth century. The excavations at vico Infermeria showed, in a period described as early medieval, open-air industrial areas, then rooms of poor dwellings built against the boundary wall along the moat, from the second half of the twelfth century: one was perhaps a workshop making oil lamps, in use until the start of the thirteenth century, when the buildings against the wall were abandoned or pulled down, creating a void around the fortification that stayed unchanged at least until the middle of the eighteenth century or the start of the nineteenth. Until 2009 or 2010 the castle housed Marsala's prison, now closed.
Visiting
The castle is in the eastern corner of Marsala's centre. As it was a prison, the sources consulted do not say whether it can be visited today: access and hours should be checked.
Our editors' tip
Note the name of piazzetta Sant'Oliva, once an integral part of the castle: it derives from the traditional location of the prison in which the saint, venerated also by the Arabs, was shut up before being taken captive to Tunis, where she was martyred.
