Maurolico Tower in Pollina
The Maurolico tower and the medieval castle dominate the entire town and constitute the heart of the ancient village.
The castle was built at the behest of the Ventimiglia family before the century. XIII. Today only a few ruins remain of the castle, its structure over the centuries has been incorporated by posthumous constructions.
Inside the perimeter walls, the square tower, the Maurolico tower, rises imposingly. It was built in the Arab era, between 900 and 1000 AD, and owes its name to the Messina scientist Francesco Maurolico, who was a guest of the Marquis Giovanni II Ventimiglia from 1494 to 1575 AD, and who used the tower as an astronomical observatory.
The tower is in fact of historical importance also because it can be considered the first astronomical observatory in Sicily: it is here that, thanks to the work of the scientist, the Alfonsine Tables were corrected, i.e. astronomical tables capable of providing the positions of the Sun, other stars and planets and the dates of eclipses and which constituted the calendar in use since the thirteenth century.
