“Castel del Monte is of outstanding universal value in its formal perfection and its harmonious blending of cultural elements from Northern Europe, the Muslim world and classical antiquity. It’s a unique masterpiece of medieval military architecture reflecting the humanism of its founder: Frederick II of Hoenstaufen”.

In 1996, the UNESCO Committee for the World Patrimony included the castle, built about 1240 by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, in the World Heritage List.

Our heritage is not eternal. Its deterioration is an irreversible process that we can delay but not avoid, it will not survive forever. In actual fact, all materials comprising our cultural heritage are deteriorating as a result of physical, biological or chemical changes that occur over time. The way a monument deterirates dependes on the material it is made of and on the condition it is kept in. YESTERDAY TODAY … AND TOMORROW? Could we come back…?

LIMESTONE The local limestone,that is the most used building material in the castle (the main architectonic structures and some decorative details are made of this material) prevailing on the other material, comes from “Murge”.

MARBLE The white and veined marble, that today we can see only in some windows at the first floor and in some decorations of the rooms, had to be the material for all the furnishing in the castle.

CORAL CRUSHED stone The coral crushed stone was a decorative element used to give colour to the halls at the first floor and to give the finishing touches to all the interior and external windows and doors and in particular to the main doorway.

The coral crushed stone is a conglomerate of red and calcareous soil mixed with clay that we still find in quarries in the surrouding territory. Red soil Clay Calcareous soil

The threats that menace our heritage can be of natural and human origin. The ones that threat our Castle are basically two: The atmospheric agents-pollution; The carelessness.

Its particular position on the highest hill of Murge makes it under the continuous corrosive effect of wind, rain and humidity. The atmospheric agents are the most dangerous threats on the castle if we consider the effects of them on the limestone.

When Castel del Monte was bought by the Italian State in 1876, the external wall curtains were seriously damaged by the atmospheric agents: temperature, humidity rain and wind actions. The state of things inside wasn’t less precarious: some vaults had fallen to pieces, some others were threatening to fall in consequence of the abundant infiltration of rainwater from the flat roof.

In 1879 Engineer Sarlo started the first phase of the restoration work by IMPERMEABILIZING the roofs and the hanging tanks, consolidating the structures and equipping the windows with casings; in this period the fragment of the mosaic floor reappeared in the 8th hall on the ground floor.

Architect Quagliati conducted the works since 1928: he provided to clear away all the resultant material banked against the outdoor walls. He substituted the deteriorated ashlars with others more or less alike, quarried from the neighbouring pits. This work went on for decades.