Top 9 Castles around Santa Maria A Vico

TO visit, it is still possible to climb up one of the 4 towers for a view over the entire valley

The Tower of Casertavecchia is part of the village which was under Lombard dominion. The particular position, thanks to the protection of the mountains, has made Casertavecchia a refuge for the populations during the incursion of the Saracens.

This castle was wanted by Tommaso II d'Aquino. Over the years it was the home of nobles, such as the Sicilian kings, but later also of brigands.

The castle of Matinale, or castle of Rudovaco, is a castle of Cancello, a fraction of the municipality of San Felice a Cancello, in the province of Caserta. It stands on an elevation overlooking the entrance to the Suessola valley. The construction of the castle of Matinale is attributed to Tommaso II d'Aquino, count of Acerra, on the occasion of his wedding with Margherita di Svevia, illegitimate daughter of Emperor Frederick II, a wedding which took place before 1247. The bride's dowry included the fiefdom di Suessola, to which the Cancello hamlet also belonged. According to local tradition, an original Lombard fortification of the ninth century would have been the work of a certain Rudovaco and would have passed on to his death to the Count of Acerra, Cullezio. He wanted to join his castle of Acerra to that of Cancello with an underground path, causing the ruin of the western side and was unable to restore it following his death in battle. The castle was later restored or rebuilt by the Norman Ramperto and again by the Mattaloni counts in the 12th century. The castle hosted the kings of Sicily Guglielmo il Malo (1131-1166) and Manfredi di Svevia (1232-1266) and the Dukes of Rebursa and again, in the Angevin period, King Ladislao I and the Carafa in the Aragonese period. In the 15th century it was abandoned, having lost its military function. It was the seat of an inn and probably housed an archpriest church dedicated to St. Thomas the Apostle. In 1799 the French general Jean Étienne Championnet established his headquarters there and later became a den of brigands. It was donated at the beginning of the twentieth century by the D'Aquino family, princes of Caramanico, to the baron Giovanni Barracco. During the Second World War it hosted the allied command in 1943.

The castle of Casertavecchia is the main fortified place and military defense of the homonymous village of Caserta, the only one to have survived in legible forms in part and or completely having disappeared the city walls mentioned in the historical sources.

Casertavecchia (fraction of Caserta) is a medieval village that rises on the slopes of the Tifatini mountains at about 401 meters high and 10 km away in the north-east direction from Caserta. The origins of Casertavecchia are still uncertain, but according to some information extrapolated from a writing by the Benedictine monk Erchemperto, already in the year 861 AD. there was an urban nucleus called "Casahirta" (from the Latin casa meaning village and hirta meaning harsh). The village has undergone various dominations over the course of history.

The ruins of the castle are very impressive and are worth a visit. Too bad for the very poor enhancement of the site that deserves a better fate ...

The Castle of Arienzo "Castem Vetus" which dominates Mons Argentium, known today as Monte Castello, dates back to the 7th century and was built by the Lombards to first defend the Duchy and then the Principality of Benevento. Due to its strategic position, the castle was a lookout post over the entire valley below. From 879/882, the city of Suessola was raided and destroyed by the Saracens. After the destruction of the city, following a fire, part of the Suessolani took refuge on Mount Argentarium, where there was a castle. In 1135 King Ruggero II D'Altavilla, known as the Norman, asked for it to be demolished. The latter, having to leave for Sicily, feared that in his absence the soldiers of Rainulfo could settle in the fortress and control the vast territory from above. His order was only partially carried out and later the castle was rebuilt by his son Guglielmo. From 1135, after the destruction of the Arienzo castle, the inhabitants went down to the valley where they built the new Castle of Arienzo, known as "the Terra Murata". The castles of Arpaia, Cancello, Maddaloni, Casertavecchia were built on the highest peaks of the surrounding mountains. https://www.marianodeangelis.com/portfolio/castello-di-arienzo