The Norman-swabian Castle of Morano Calabro is located in a strategic position so as to dominate the whole valley of the ancient Sybaris. Its origins date back to the Roman Age when there was erected a fortress, or probably a tower of sighting, whose base in opus incertum became the foundation for the remodeling of the Norman era-Swabian and later.
In medieval times, its dominant position attracted the attention of the Swabian militia; was then feudal seat to begin by Apollonius Morano, first feudatory of which you have news. The theater of many episodes of arms, among the many remember, during the phase of the War of the Vespro, the incursion of the mercenaries Almogavari that, hired by the Aragonese, conquered Morano difensivamente unprepared and ne espugnarono castle doing prisoner Welcome, said the Lady of Morano, wife of the feudatory Tancredi Fasanella. This, in the following year 1286, being Morano with Castrovillari and Taranto passed to the fidelity of Charles of Anjou, from captive carceriera became of the Manfredi family of Chiaromonte, its conguinto of aragonese part. Around this period it is likely that the castle, from its forms more rudimentary was high and expanded.
Very significant however is the remaking of the building in the first forty years of the Sixteenth Century (between 1514 and 1545) at the behest of the feudatory Pietrantonio Sanseverino who, in accomplishing the work wanted to be inspired by the model of the Maschio Angioino Napoli, calling for this factory is the most skillful craftsmen. The castle was therefore the feudal residence at Morano in a more or less continuous up to the principles of the ‘700 together with the Palace of the princes that stands at the entrance to the village next to port sita on access of the ancient via delle Calabrie.
In 1733 the structure was severely compromised for reasons not entirely clear, then the manor was bombed by the French army during the Napoleonic period in 1806; his fate was also marked by sequential spoliation, that during the Family Feud Spinelli of Scalea (second half of the fifteenth century – XIX century) allowed the removal of elements murari and wooden materials of the structure, condemning the building to its progressive forfeiture up to the recent restructuring of the 2000s that have permitted the recovery of some local, of frontal towers, of dirute perimeter walls and of the esplanade behind.
Its current shapes suggest yet the shape which it had in the first decade of the XVIII century: in square plan, surrounded by six cylindrical towers (of which survive in full only the central one and the left one of the front), was also surrounded by ravelins and moat, had ramparts trimura saettine and drawbridge; amounted to three storeys high and was composed of spacious rooms divided into several apartments and, overall, you estimate had the capacity of a garrison of thousand men.