Il "Castello di Corradino" a Centuripe. Un raro caso di mausoleo imperiale in Sicilia

The so-called Castello di Corradino (Castle of Conradin) is a Roman funerary monument of the imperial period, whose funerary purpose was first identified by G. Libertini in his monograph on Centuripe in 1926. The author proposed an interpretation of the monument based on a new survey of the building, careful analysis of its building technique and comparison with other similar monuments. This enabled him to classify it in type. Comparison with another typologically similar building in Centuripe, the so-called Dogana, and a comparative analysis of the modular aspects of both, provided the basis for a proposed reconstruction of the Castello di Corradino inspired by the model of the funerary monument raised over a podium with an upper chamber. This is a type of mausoleum widely adopted in Rome and Lazio, but that has no corrispondences in other sites in Sicily. This circumstance can be explained by the privileged relations that Centuripae har with Rome, and by the presence in Rome of powerful centuripan families that had close links with the Roman bourgeoisie. Starting out from the technical analysis of the two monuments and arguments based on "type", the author proposes a date for them in the second half of the 2nd century BC. He also proposes a relative chronology of the two buildings based on comparison between their respective use of two-colour brick-work.