Il castello di Francavilla di Sicilia. Un presidio fortificato sulla Valle dell'Alcantara. Dall'epoca medievale alla guerra austro-spagnola

The Ionian coast of Messina, in Sicily, is geomorphologically characterized by a system of fiumaras, on which many small settlements, spread throughout a large area, already in medieval times. In these territories, in the center of the valley that feeds the Alcantara Fiumara, there are the ruins of the castle of Francavilla dating back to the thirteenth century, which together with those of Fiumedinisi, Savoca, Forza d'Agrò, Sant'Alessio, Castiglione, Motta Camastra, Castelmola and Taormina villages, constituted the defensive system of this area. The study was organized into two different scales: one on the landscape value of the place regarding both the historical and the natural environment, and that of the detail of the architectural object. If the first has highlighted the relationships among all the other fortified structures of the area, the second, carried out by stratigraphic analysis of upstanding structures, has allowed to determine different historical-construction layers over time, from late 13th century to the first half of the 16th century. In 1719 the site was place of Francavilla military battle between the Spanish and Austrian armies, whose cartographic documents have been traced.