Castellaccio (Forte Castellaccio (Messina))

Forte Castellaccio is an abandoned hilltop fortress in Messina, Sicily built by Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily around the middle of the 16th Century as part of a defensive project ordered by Emperor Charles V of Habsburg. It was designed by the Italian military architect Antonio Ferramolino. It was damaged by the 1908 Messina earthquake before being briefly reused as a 'colony for boys' in the 1940s. Despite several attempts to renovate the site since, it has remained abandoned and considered locally to be haunted by the ghosts of orphans and by the apparition of a nun.