entry Sept 2013
The Palazzo d'Avalos on the island of Procida
The
Palazzo d’Avalos, commonly known as the Procida
Castle, sits atop (at 91 meters above sea level) a
limestone cliff overlooking the sea. It’s about two miles
across to the mainland. A healthy swim if you’re in shape.
The building was erected in the 1560s on the commission of
cardinal Innico d’Avalos, whose family governed the island
until the arrival of the Bourbons in 1734. The inhabited
center of the island was situated behind the building; the
cardinal also had a wall erected around the small town to
protect it from incursions by Saracen
pirates. That section of the modern island is still called
the “terra murata,” the “walled land.”In 1744, the building became the property of the new crown and became another of Charles III’s royal sites. A "Bourbon Royal Site" was a piece of property considered the personal possession of the king or of some member of the royal family. There were 22 such sites in the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples; some were palaces, others were villas, and some were casine (singular: casina)—a hunting lodge, the casina, at the center of a large tract of land. The complete list:
In 1815, following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after the Napoleonic Wars, the Palazzo d’Avalos became a military academy, and in 1830 was transformed into a penitentiary by Ferdinand II. It functioned as such throughout the 19th century and most of the 20th century. It was upgraded after WWII into a maximum security prison, which is where that swim comes in. (I don’t know if anyone ever made it off this particular “Rock.” The prison was finally closed in 1988. Recent notices (summer, 2013) from Procida have made a grand show of the fact that the building has finally been acquired by the Procida city government, which has ambitious plans for turning it towards social uses such as a youth center, museum, exhibit hall, etc.
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