The Castle of Termini Imerese


Submitted by Alfredo Fazio





Once upon a time there was a castle (property of the State) in Termini Imerese.

The Royal Fortress was built where today is Belvedere, behind Duomo church.. It was enclosed by a powerful and high wall; inside there was barracked Bourbons garrisons, the warehouses, the powder-keg, the prisons, the underground water tanks and the little church of S. Ferdinando; on the peak of the rock there was the telegraph with poles (telegrafo ad aste).

After its destruction, took placed in 1860, only few walls remain today of that Castle in which there were armed: the Muslims, the Normans, the Frenches, the Aragoneses, the Savoies and the soldiers of the Bourbons of Naples.

The last Captain of the Castle was Emanuele Taiani (called by Termitans wide trousers "braghe larghe"); after he leaved from Termini with the troop-Royal Ship Archimede under the orders of lieutenant colonel Carlo Flores.

The keys of the Castle were consigned to the leader of the revolutionary committee dott. Liborio Arrigo; on June the 5th 1860 the new Italian flag was raisen and the destruction of the Castle began. For several years (about 120) the castle was used as stone quarry to make lime, I think it was a mistake.

We can say it was conquired by Termitans on June, 5th 1860 infact its last owner was the Two Sicilies' Kingdom until the above date. After the 1860 revolution and the Italy's Unity it was destroyed by the prisoners and the same Termitans leaded by the committee's leader dott. Liborio Arrigo and the chaplain in the armed services of the castle Don Agostino Giuffrè.

Why Thermitans destroyed their Castle? At that time they considered the Castle like a symbol of tyranny, forgetting in the past it was also a bastion of the Sicilian Liberty.

So they deprived Termini Imerese of one of the three most important monuments of Termini, like the Roman amphitheatre and the Corenlius' aqueduct.

Neither a tablet nor a Foundation today exists in honour of that was a missing Giant.


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Copyright© June 24, 2021, Laura L Johnson, Termini-Imerese.org, Comuni di Italia.org