Castel del Monte is located in the area of Andria, in Puglia. On each of the eight corners, there are eight towers of the same shape in the local limestone curtain walls, marked by a string course; on the lower floor, eight single-light windows open, on the upper floor seven double windows and only one triple window, facing Andria.
The courtyard of Castel del Monte, octagonal in shape, is characterized, like the entire building, by the color contrast resulting from the use of coral breccia, limestone, and marbles; ancient sculptures were once present as well, of which only the slab depicting the Knights’ Procession and a Fragment of an anthropomorphic figure remain.
At the level of the upper floor, three door-windows open, underneath which are some projecting elements and some holes, perhaps intended to support a wooden balcony useful to make the rooms independent from each other, all interconnected by a circular corridor, except for the first and the eighth, separated by a wall in which a large oculus opens high up, probably used for communication.
The sixteen rooms, eight for each floor, have a trapezoidal shape and have been covered with an ingenious solution. The space is divided, in fact, into a central square bay covered by a ribbed cross vault (with half-columns in coral breccia on the ground floor and trilobed marble pillars on the upper floor), while the remaining triangular spaces are covered by ogival barrel vaults.
The keystones of the vaults differ, decorated with anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and phytomorphic elements.
The connection between the two floors occurs through three spiral staircases inserted in as many towers.
Some of these towers contain cisterns for collecting rainwater, partly channeled also towards the cistern carved into the rock below the central courtyard.
In other towers, on the other hand, the bathrooms are located, equipped with latrine and washbasin, all accompanied by a small room, probably used as a changing room or perhaps intended to accommodate ablution basins, as body care was highly practiced by Frederick II and his court, according to a custom typical of that Arab world so beloved by the ruler.
The sculptural furnishings are of great interest and, although greatly depleted, provide a significant testimony of the original decorative apparatus, once also characterized by the wide color range of the materials
employed: mosaic tesserae, majolica tiles, glass pastes, and murals, traces of which some local writers and historians saw between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, describing them in their works.
Currently still present are the two anthropomorphic corbels in the Falconer’s Tower, the telamons supporting the umbrella vault of one of the stair towers, and a fragment of the floor mosaic in the eighth room on the ground floor. In the Provincial Art Gallery of Bari, two important sculptural fragments, depicting a Head and a Headless Bust, found during the long restorations, have been temporarily deposited; those restorations did not recover any trace, however, of the octagonal basin placed in the center of the courtyard, mentioned by some scholars of the last century.
