Higher building in the city. A prestigious location in the place known as the "court plane," once in a defensive and strategic point ofe view, now simply for the beauty of the landscape admired from there.
Rocca dei Rettori, also known as Manfredi's Palace, is the castle of Benevento. An harmonious result of the overlapping of structures from different eras and styles. The Samnites were the first to fortify the high ground and then the Romans created a castellum aquae there, a spa complex of which are traces in the garden. Later, from 871, Arechi II initiated the construction work of the fortress that would long survive the Longobard rule before giving up to the aggressions of the time. But in 1321, from Avignon, the then Pope John XII commissioned the papal rector of the city, Guglielmo de Balaeto, to build a new fortified headquarters for the Rectors, the papal governors, there where the Benedictine women's monastery of Santa Maria di Porta Somma was located. And so, once the nuns were moved, the work begun and were completed in 1338, incorporating the eastern city gate, which was rebuilt elsewhere. It was a castrum and unpalatium fenced with moats equipped with three drawbridges. In 1586 the structure underwent further remodeling to be used as a prison and remained so until 1865. Part of it then had to be rebuilt after the earthquake in 1702.
The fortress currently consists of the corner keep, dating back to the Longobard building, and the medieval palace of the governor, a rectangular structure on three floors. On the ground floor are the dungeons, on the second floor are spacious rooms with fine wooden ceilings, and on the top floor are two watchtowers, from one of those the magnificent panorama of the city, the Sabato and Calore valleys can be admired, as far as the profile of the "Sleeping Woman." It houses the Province and the historical section of the Sannio’s Museum with a permanent exhibition on "Excellent Men, Traces of Benevento’s resurgence." In the gardens are exhibited the miliarii of Via Traiana and various Roman architectural pieces.
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