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Enna castle was apparently entered via a south facing gate set in a barbican which runs along the entire west, town face of the fortress.  Like at so many other castles - Calatabiano, Calatabellotta, Erice, Mussomeli and Taormina, the outer face of this gate is ogival, but the interior is rounded.  At the north end of the barbican is a further ogival gate which is probably later and marks the current entrance to the site.  Both entrances were commanded by towers from the outer ward, now known as the St Nicholas bailey.  Both of these project solely to the west.  Excavation has shown that the rock on which this barbican stands was quarried out in the fifth century BC.  In the sixteenth century the walls were restored for guns, with a cistern being added to the north and a well to the south.

From the barbican the outer ward, or St Nicholas bailey, was entered roughly centrally on the north side of a projecting tower - one of 3 commanding the barbican.  This tower was demolished in the sixteenth century refurbishment, but the steps running up to its upper levels can still be made out in the ward.  The hole in the wall type gate again has an ogival opening to the exterior and a round arch within.  The upper sections of this wall have obviously been replaced.  The name of St Nicholas bailey obviously comes from the lost church of the same name which stood here as late as the sixteenth century - St Nicholas was the patron saint of the Hautevilles and this was presumably the chapel mentioned in 1145.  The ward itself lies at a lower elevation than the rest of the castle, which has towers commanding this ward, just as this bailey has towers that only project west into the barbican.  To the northwest are remains of the sixteenth century barracks.  Excavation has shown that like the barbican this area was a Greek quarry in the fifth century BC.  Later in the fifth and fourth century BC votive pits were cut and finally replaced with a Roman and then a Byzantine necropolis.  It was during the latter times that a moat was dug in front of the main castle walls.  This has been excavated to the southeast and was filled in by the fourteenth century.  Centrally to the north is the entrance to the sanctuary of Demeter.  This is a vast gallery with a funnel-shaped mouth leading to a descending ramp floor which leads to an underground room with niches for lamps and possible a gigantic sepulchre as well as a water collection tank which may be of a later date.  At the end is a small tunnel that goes out to the level of the external road.  This was opened in the last century.  The water tank is fed from a complex system for collecting rainwater which was then carried up to a water trough placed in the northwest corner of the castle where there is now a small fountain.

In the northwest corner of the ward stands the Campana Tower of 2 floors.  This rectangular structure has a modern tiled roof and was used as a prison.  Consequently it has no windows.  In the upper cell the plaster still bears the signs of the prisoners' graffiti which consists of calendars, threats, poems and signatures.  This was known as the bell tower as it contained the bell that alerted the city in the event of a prison break.  The upper floor is reached via a staircase that runs up to the wallwalk along the south face of the garrison complex.  This room has a fine rectangular window with an intricate shell carving on top.  The lack of other openings suggests the tower has been much modified.  At the opposite end of the west wall is the Torre della Guardia.  This looks like an addition to the old south curtain wall, judging by the junction.  It has one south facing loop at curtain wallwalk level and one large ogival light to the north on the floor below.  Entrance was via a doorway from the ward at this level, which is 6' higher than the external barbican side.

From the outer ward access to the middle ward was gained via a gate placed in the curtain between the Torre della Catena and the Torre dell'Harem.  Again this was ogival externally and Romanesque internally.  To the south of the Catena Tower, on a line with the front of the south tower to the north, a rock cut ditch was dug as a part of the old Byzantine fortress, the resultant stone being used for the castle wall.  This suggests that the original Byzantine castle, dated from the time of the Muslim attacks on Sicily beginning in 652 and ending with the conquest of Enna in 859.  This fortress therefore included both the Maddalena and San Martino wards.  The large Maddalena ward is so called as the church of St Mary Magdalen once stood here.  All trace of this is now removed.  This possibly happened in the 1940s when the interior was excavated to provide water cisterns for the town.  At the southwest end of the curtain is a rectangular tower called the south tower.  This projects mainly into the outer ward, but is entered from the north.  An early sketch of the castle shows a similar tower at the southeast corner of the ward, but there is no longer any trace of this, the wall around this corner having been totally replaced until it butts awkwardly with the east tower at the easternmost apex of the site.  From here the original wall turns northwest towards the upper or San Martino ward.  Just before the upper ward is reached a postern gate leads down towards the Rocca di Cerere.

Of this ward's towers the Catena Tower has 2 floors, the upper floor being reached via the wallwalks.  The ground floor is entered via a doorway to the south and has a blocked large ogival window to the west and a small loop to the north commanding the gate.  Just beyond the south wall of the tower, set in the curtain, is a smaller single blocked light.  This would indicate that a building once stood on the east side of this wall.  There appears to be no access to the wallwalks from either the south or the Catena towers.  The east tower is entered from the west and has small loops in its 3 faces.  The curtain to the east seems to have had many buildings butting against it.

Entrance into the inner or St Martin's ward was gained via yet another hole in the wall gate, commanded by the Harem Tower.  This led into a polygonal enclosure containing 6 rectangular towers, of which 3 are similar.  The Torre dell'Harem is rectangular with a later entrance to the south from the middle ward.  An external thickening in its north wall probably suggests that external steps led up to the first floor from here.  Certainly from the wallwalk, above where the thickening ends, another flight of steps led up to another chamber on the second floor of the tower.  At some point the west curtain of the ward was cut through and a second rectangular tower added to make the Harem Tower into a double structure, but the eastern, older half has thicker walls.  A doorway was also added into the outer ward and the middle ward.  The ashlar masonry of the west half of the tower is quite dissimilar to that of the adjoining curtain.  East of the Harem Tower, which commands the entrance to the inner ward, is the Maddalena Tower, which appears similar to the original Harem Tower.  Both these towers are boldly projecting into the middle ward.  There are two towers along the east wall, one, the northeast Zecca Tower, being slightly projecting to the east.  The other, at the south end of a long rectangular building of at least 2 storeys, butting the east curtain is the False Tower.  This was totally internal and makes an unusual junction with the middle ward curtain above the false gate postern.  The Zecca Tower seems to have a filled in basement judging by the loops to the east covering the Rocca.

From the Zecca Tower the curtain runs west up to the rocky heart of the site on which the Torre Pisana dominates the entire castle.  From the Pisana the curtain runs back down the craggy eminence to the Harem Tower.  Between the towers lie the remnants of the palace or palatium with its Romanesque loops cut through the curtain wall into the outer ward.  The north portion of this has been demolished, probably at the time of the uprising of the citizens on the death of Frederick II in 1250.  This section was then replaced by the Pisana Tower, probably built at the instruction of King Manfred (d.1266).  This tower has a strong sloping plinth and, like its compatriots, few windows, those there are being small, like its entrance door.  On its south front the Romanesque vault apparently marks the roof of the old palatium.  The tower, built in such an awkward position is not rectangular, apparently containing some elements of the old palatium in its lower floor.  It is of 3 storeys, the upper one having a well carved cross vault.  Entrance was original gained from the first floor to the south through the palatium, but above the remains of the vault as can be seen above.  Internally, in a small, irregular room with a west wall twice the thickness of any other, a stair wound its way from this door to the roof, which has been recrenellated in the last century.  From the summit most of Sicily is visible, after being reached via the modern internal stairs.

By the eighteenth century Lombardia castle was already partially in ruins and in 1837 Ferdinando II of Borbone judged it militarily useless.  It was later used as a prison until 1887 when the castle was described as in total disrepair.  In the 1930s the first courtyard was transformed into an open-air theatre inaugurated in 1938, while vast water tanks were constructed under the ‘yard of the victuals'.  During the second world war the castle saw its last military use when soldiers were garrisoned here.  Afterwards, starting in 1951, heavy restoration works were carried out.

Copyright©2019 Paul Martin Remfry

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