Swabian Castle of Augusta
Carmelovunque - CC4.0
The castle has a square plan with a central courtyard, three building wings, three square corner towers, two median rectangular towers on the east and west sides, a median pentagonal tower on the south side and various advanced bastion works.
The Swabian nucleus of the castle it consists of a square wall with a vast internal courtyard, along which the three building wings were arranged parallel to the perimeter walls on the north, east and west sides. The fortification had four corner towers with a square plan, even if one of these, the one located to the south-west, was incorporated into the building following the remodeling carried out in order to use the complex as a prison, and the fourth was completely destroyed . There are also two rectangular curtain towers placed in the middle of the west and east sides (on the northern side it was destroyed), while in the middle of the south side, to defend the entrance to the castle, stands a pentagonal plant tower set on a shoe base with ashlar facing. It is believed that the keep was originally an octagonal keep built astride the boundary wall on the southern side of the castle.
The entrance leads to the large internal courtyard flanked by a portico with pointed arches, pillars and ribbed cross vaults. Of the portico, only the ship on the side remains free today. Above the porch are the sloping roofs and floors of the penitentiary cells built in 1890 when the castle was used as a prison.
On the ground floor, in the western wing, you can partially admire the original internal configuration of the Swabian building : a long nave, divided into seven cross vaults with a square base, divided by large pointed arches at the base of which is a white frame from which also the robust ribs with felled corners of the vaults branch off.
