The assumptions on the genesis of the first nucleus of the current castle attest its origins between 1046 and 1050 by the Normans and are based on the custom, typical of this people, to fortify the lands close to those to be conquered by providing towers , in view of the subsequent occupation of the neighboring area. [10] For this reason Count Peter the Norman in view of a subsequent attack on the city of Trani , held strenuously until 1054 , under the Byzantine rule, [11] seized the defenseless lands of Barletta, erecting a fortress for defensive purposes in the south - east area of today 's building. In those same years he built the first city wall, within which the town was divided into two nuclei of Santa Maria, near the castle and the ancient mother church , and San Giacomo, to the west around the church of the same name . [12]
The passage of deliveries between the Norman count and his son Peter II, occurred in 1067, [12] and the consequent wars of succession to power that involved the Altavilla of Sicily, [13] made Puglia an open field of war [14] and they led the Barlettan territory under the power of William I of Sicily, who succeeded his father in 1154 , having died his elder brothers. Following the destruction of Bari , Guglielmo, called il Malo , between 1156 and 1162 , expanded the building of the castle, building two other towers , connected by a simple wall, to which was later added a fourth on the south-west side, thus forming a pseudo-trapezoidal fortress . [15] In 1172 William II, known as Good , son of William I, returning from Taranto and heading for the sanctuary of San Michele Arcangelo in Monte Sant'Angelo , stayed in the castle of Barletta [11] making substantial donations in favor of the barlettano clergy. [16]
Of the Norman period, which ended with the death of Tancredi , William II's cousin, in 1194 , only the south-east tower remained, in 1194 , cut off in height and incorporated during the sixteenth-century interventions in the southern curtain of the Spanish structure. [17] The profound restoration of the castle in the eighties , given the direct inaccessibility of the tower, has allowed the internal visibility through the recovery of a hole in the ground floor protected by a metal grating.
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