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 changed and expanded the original structure to make it impregnable to enemy sieges and subsequently adapted it as a noble residence.

Between 1487 and 1495, it became the seat of a military garrison, owned by the Royal Administration. From 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 from Settignano, a pupil of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, the king’s military architect in Naples, known in courts throughout Europe.

Between 1515 and 1516, Count Bernardino Sanseverino promoted further modification works affecting 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 overlooking the Keep, the chapel of St. Augustine, and the completion of the covering superstructures.

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

In 1872, the famous Neapolitan 19th-century artist Domenico Morelli was commissioned the triptych depicting the Madonna of the Roses flanked by St. Anthony Abbot and St. Augustine.

In 1971 Francesco Compagna sold the castle, for a symbolic amount, to the Archbishopric Mensa of Rossano.

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

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

• The Mezzanine floor, where you can find the prisons, the 19th-century cast iron kitchens, and the powder magazine;

• The Noble floor, where you can visit:

– the frescoed noble rooms furnished with furniture of the time;

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

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

• The Keep tower, the first core of the manor, which develops on 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 dive into the past.

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