La Rocca Montis Dragonis in età angioina. Ruoli e funzioni del sito fortificato da presidio militare a centro di potere

The fortified settlement of Rocca Montis Dragonis (Caserta) is located on the top of Mount Petrino, in the middle of an area adjoining to northwest the plain of Sessa that extends to the Liri-Garigliano, to east the slopes of Mount Massico, to south the fertile plain of the “Campania Felix”, crossed by the river Volturno and extended until the volcan Vesuvius and to west the sea. Since the year 2001, there were going on annual archaeological excavations, runned by the Civic Archaeological Museum of Mondragone. The fortified settlement, known on written sources in the early XIIth century, is a big size hilltop site, characterized by a group of interior spaces and structures rather complex and hierarchically distributed in three different nuclei. The geographical location of the fortified settlement has emphasized, from the first phase of use, recently dated to early middle age, the strategic role of territorial control and defense. Under the policy of castles, towns, counties and properties donations, committed by Charles I of Anjou on behalf of those who had supported the conquest of the Kingdom, in 1269 the fortress of Rocca Montis Dragonis, was awarded to Philip, King of Thessaly for its strategic military value, and throughout the Angevin kingdom, his possession returned to the policy of radical renewal of feudality, which included the appointment of France and Provence holders to the highest secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries. In the mid-fifteenth century, during the conflict between Angevins and Aragonese for the conquest of the kingdom, the Rocca, which was at that time one of the most important strongholds of the Duchy of Sessa, is besieged by the troops of King Ferdinand I of Aragon, and subsequently in 1461 was granted to the Carafa family. In the current state of investigations, it is possible to recognize an important restoring phase that involved the buildings of the hilltop plateau during the XIVth and XVth century, characterized by a radical reuse of architectural structures and by the new featuring of the fortifications, with the construction of a large building, known as the” residential palace”. Important finds are the potteries and the numismatic evidence, and the metal and vitreous artefacts discovered in the excavation areas; imported ceramic production, as enamelled polychrome vessels, gave evidences of significant economic exchanges between the fortified settlement and the sites of central Italy. All the buildings investigated up to now on the hilltop plateau and in the first village, were probably in use until the XVIth century, when the collapse of the roofs obliterates them, being the cause of the desertion of the entire settlement.