Punta Troia Castle
Description
Around 1140 Roger II, King of Sicily, transformed the old Saracen tower of Punta Troia in a real castle in defense of western end of the richest and most powerful kingdom in the Mediterranean at that time.
In subsequent periods Swabian domination, Angevin and Aragonese Marettimo followed the fate of Sicily, accentuating an isolation that had its peak during the long Spanish rule, when the western part of the island became a receptacle for pirates and privateers of all the reams, with a prevalence of those Saracens. The few inhabitants were forced to live in caves and the only real oversight of the central government was made up of the castle and its increasingly small garrison.
In the late 18th century the island began to be populated on a permanent basis. At that time, King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, pushed by the enlightened viceroy Caracciolo, began timid attempts at government reform and enhancement of the kingdom territories. With the French Revolution, the castle became horrid prison, especially for political prisoners: in 1793, in times of anti-Jacobin repression and famine, Castle had well 52 political prisoners, crammed into a prison created in an old cistern called 'the pit”.
In 1844 King Ferdinand II abolished the castle. Together fell into disrepair the nearby church dedicated to St. Anne and the chapel dedicated to Our Lady.
Today the town is enclosed in a single agglomeration no longer 300 meters wide 200. Residents live mostly of tourism, but in the not too distant past, most of the population was made up of very valid sea-faring, experts and salting fish, not last, like good farmers and beekeepers.