Ducal Castle Museum of Corigliano Calabro

Built as a military fortress in 1073, the castle underwent a series of transformations over time. The Sanseverino princes, the Saluzzo dukes, and the Compagna barons altered and expanded the original structure to make it impregnable to enemy sieges and later adapted it as a noble residence.

Between 1487 and 1495, it became the seat of a military garrison, owned by the Royal Administration. During this period, by royal commission, as evidenced by the stone inscription on the entrance facade, the construction of the towers at the vertices of the quadrilateral, according to the cardinal points, is attributed. The work is probably attributable to Antonio Marchesi da Settignano, a pupil of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, the king’s military architect in Naples, known in courts across Europe.

Between 1515 and 1516, Count Bernardino Sanseverino promoted further modifications that affected the following parts of the building: the bastions, the towers, the residence, the defensive works, the moat, and the prisons.

Between 1650 and 1720, the Saluzzo dukes, new owners, ordered the construction of the octagonal tower that overlooks the Keep, the chapel of St. Augustine, and the completion of the roofing superstructures.

In 1828 the manor was purchased by Giuseppe Compagna. His second son Luigi commissioned the Florentine master Girolamo Varni to execute the frescoes on the vault of St. Augustine’s dome and the raising of the Keep tower; the Hall of Mirrors to master Ignazio Perricci from Monopoli.

In 1872, the triptych depicting the Madonna of the Roses with St. Anthony Abbot and St. Augustine on the sides was commissioned to the master Domenico Morelli, a famous 19th-century Neapolitan painter.

In 1971 Francesco Compagna sold the castle, at a symbolic price, to the Archiepiscopal Table of Rossano.

Finally, in 1979 it was acquired by the Municipal Administration of Corigliano, which, between 1988 and 2002, carried out the latest restoration works.

Today the Ducal Castle of Corigliano Calabro is a Museum where it is possible to visit:

• The Mezzanine floor, where the prisons, 19th-century cast iron kitchens, and the Santabarbara are located;

• The Noble floor, where you can visit:

– the noble frescoed rooms furnished with period furniture;

– the dining room set with period ceramics crowned by a wonderful wrought iron chandelier;

– the hall of mirrors, which owes its name to the presence of large mirrors hanging on the walls framed with golden stucco finishes and covered on the sides by precious brocades. The room is enriched by Bohemian crystal chandeliers and a ceiling painted with trompe-l’oeil effects;

• The Keep tower, the first nucleus of the manor, which develops over five levels, four of which, connected by a cast iron staircase built by Neapolitan masters, are entirely frescoed by the artist Girolamo Varni.

The visit allows a plunge into the past.

The rooms, furnished with original furniture, recreate suggestive atmospheres of long-gone eras.