LANDSCAPE AND CASTLESCAPES IN CENTRAL SICILY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. METHODOLOGY AND PROBLEMATICS.

The landscape of central Sicily is marked by the presence of several fortified elite residences, but also hilltop fortifications defined generically "castles". However, in the publications, with some exceptions, have not been investigated by means of the multidisciplinary research including Landscape History and Archaeology, Archaeology of Architecture, Linguistics, Anthropology. The same word “castle” is used continuously to indicate generically the castles in Medieval age without regards to the different architectonic features, functions, roles, and social cultural processes in the Byzantine, Norman Age and later. The castles in this area often built or powered in the Norman age, today often appears in establishing assumed by the Swabian age; even if, they are involved in restorations, or damaged, or almost completely destroyed, still characterize the rural and urban landscape of the Island, often in closely topographic proximity with fortified cathedral churches or with rock settlements