Sant'Angelo Castle in Licata
The Castel Sant'Angelo di Licata represents a notable example of military architecture in Sicilian Baroque style. It stands on top of a hill and dominates the port to the south and the city to the north. In the area adjacent to the castle there are numerous archaeological remains, including necropolis, sanctuaries, silos, roads, monumental tombs, and cisterns.
It was built in 1615 at the behest of Hernando Petigno, commander general of the cavalry of the Kingdom of Sicily and Governor of the military square of Syracuse, designed by the engineer Camillo Camilliani, next to a pre-existing quadrangular watch tower built between 1583 and 1585.
Although the castle was born for military purposes, it was never the protagonist of no war episode, for this reason it has come to us in a perfect state of conservation. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it housed a garrison of the Air Force until 1965, the year of its definitive disposal.
The castle has an approximately triangular plan. The rooms, such as the soldiers' quarters, the stables and the warehouses, develop around a courtyard, also triangular with a central underground cistern, along the entire internal wall perimeter. Inside the courtyard, to the west, under a large arch, there was also the chapel of the castle, which no longer exists. There are hardly any signs of the frames, which probably included some frescoes or paintings.
The external walls are quite robust, thick and compact and have continuous battlements. At the corners of the fortress there are imposing towers, which played an important role in the sighting of any enemy threats in the distance. it isolated only the great tower from the countryside.
