Fortified masserie in Calabria. Architectural features and typological models

Abstract

In southern Italy, and also in Calabria, fortified masserie represent a typical building model meant for the management, the control and the defense of the territory and of the rural heritage. This occurs especially in areas where, before the agricultural reform of the mid-twentieth century, the latifundium was the main model of property organization. The geographical position of the region, which has always been exposed to incursions and looting, has favored, in the rural buildings, the presence of defensive morpho-structural elements and above all the spread of typological plants that make the building system closed to the outside and therefore protected. This is the main topic of the research. Through the study, survey and analysis of 26 fortified masserie on the Calabrian territory, we have identified three particularly widespread typological-settlement models: the fortress masseria, the court masseria, the block masseria.