Bernalda Castle

The castle is the symbol of the town  and  has dominated austerely for centuries  the Basento valley. The medieval castle was built on an earlier Norman (or perhaps even earlier) fortification structure, of ancient Camarda, measuring 20 x 20 m.

On October 5, 1239, Frederick II ordered the local people of Basilicata to maintain several castles, among which the one in Camarda is mentioned. 

The medieval fortification was an embattled castro with a walkway platform placed below the battlements. Inside the fortification the first volumes were built towards the end of the 15th century by Bernardino de Bernaudo, secretary to King Alfonso II of Aragon, who acquired the fief.

It has a quadrangular shape with three angular towers, two rounded ones suggesting Angevin/Aragonese interventions and a square one of clear Norman origin. A fourth tower was eliminated during the eighteenth-century enlargement(?). The castro  seems to have in the beginning besides other towers also a moat on the side facing the town.
The entrance gave onto the square and was reached by means of a wooden drawbridge that was replaced by a masonry one in 1745.

It underwent various renovations, which over the centuries certainly varied its dimensions considerably. The remaining towers have exposed fortifications both outside and inside the castle.