Monterotaro

The perimeter of the town can still be guessed thanks to some ruins of the city walls.

Between the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth was under the rule of the De Rocca di Troia and according to some hypotheses was destroyed by Frederick II, when its inhabitants rebelled against him. In 1250 the fortified village, consisting of a castle and a few houses, was a fief of Riccardo da Malta. The village began to be gradually depopulated in the fifteenth century; due to the plague its inhabitants moved downstream, founding the Casalis Novis (the current Casalnuovo Monterotaro) in the place where there was the small center called Casal San Pietro.

Of the medieval village of Monterotaro the only structure still visible today is a square tower, not far from which you can see a large cistern for the collection of rainwater. The tower has three floors and the internal vaults are barrel-shaped; on the penultimate floor of great interest is the row of shelves with ovoid decorations. According to one hypothesis, the tower was used as a sentry and sighting point. However, it is devoid of military elements typical of defensive constructions. In addition, a hole crosses the last time, constituting the probable passage through the rope of a bell: it would be a bell tower.