Castello di Lombardia di Enna

Twenty towers once guarded the Castello di Lombardia above Enna; six remain, including the Torre Pisana. Parliaments met within these walls, and Aragonese rulers held court here. The ramparts overlook the island’s central uplands.

Why it matters

The Castello di Lombardia is an architectural symbol of Enna. It spreads across the summit ridge that lifts the city above the island's interior, its pentagonal plan and square towers still organising courtyards, gates and ramparts built to hold a garrison, an imperial household and, at times, the Sicilian Parliament. Norman rebuilding, Swabian expansion and an Aragonese court shaped successive phases of the fortress.

What to notice

Twenty towers once guarded the walls; six remain, three nearly intact. The best preserved, the Torre Pisana, is also known as the Torre delle Aquile; its Guelph merlons survive, and from its platform the sea is visible on clear days. Within the walls are three courtyards — San Nicolò, Maddalena and San Martino — the small Norman church of San Martino and remains of the imperial dwelling. The curtain wall has a main entrance towards the city, a western gate and a southern “false gate”; the municipality records its length as 1,250 passi.

Context and history

The municipality records three explanations for the name: Muslim writers are said to have called the Normans "lombardi"; Count Roger settled a Lombard colony here in 1086; and a Henry of Lombardia, husband of the count's daughter Flandrina, is another candidate. Swabian works gave the fortress much of its present form around 1233. When Frederick II died in 1250, the people of Enna stormed the castle and killed the castellan Guaimario, and in 1261 Manfredi's men hanged the captured Giovanni di Cocleria here. Around 1300 the castle became a residence of Frederick II of Aragon, whose son Pietro II alternated his court between Catania and Enna. A Sicilian Parliament met here in 1458. The regional tourism portal also associates the site with Frederick II of Swabia and the island’s first parliament. In 1666 the child Charles II symbolically reconfirmed the castellan's possession in a solemn ceremony. In its long decline the fortress served successively as barracks and as a prison, until the Region declared it a cultural heritage property by decree of its cultural department on 2 July 2021, shortly after the complex passed from the State to the Sicilian Region.