RACALMUTO CASTLE - CHIARAMONTE FAMILY
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Racalmuto is an agricultural town founded by the Arabs before the year 1000, 34 km from Agrigento, spread around the Castle of the Chiaramonte family in the period following the Norman conquer. The town is known to be the birth place of the famous writer and politician Leonardo Sciascia. The fortress was built during the barony of Roberto Malcovenant, a French noble man in the service of the King Roger de Hauteville. Later, Federico d'Aragona (1272-1313) transferred the ownership of the castle and the surrounding fief to Federico II Chiaramonte. At the beginning of the XIV century, the new lords of Racalmuto changed the modest building that the Malcovenants had built into an imposing castle. It has a compact polygonal layout. The external walls dominate the so-called "piano castello", a rocky terrace, and they are about two metres thick, ended by two tall and massive towers with twelve windows in two rows. The left tower has still its original shape, while the right one was changed into a lookout. With its trapezoid plan, its round-based towers and the arrangement of its main gate and secondary entrances, the castle is without a doubt a characteristic example of military architecture of the Swabian period. At the beginnign of the XX century the castle was declared a national monument and it is seat of expositions and lectures.
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