★ 29 castello di Lombardia

The castle's origins are related to a fortress erected in the 1st millennium BC by the Sicani on the foundation of the ancient Henna, on a hill 970 m above sea level. It remained a key possession in the subsequent history of the island.
The hilltop position made ancient Henna one of the strongest natural fortresses in Sicily. The Romans captured the fortress during their conquest of Sicily during the First Punic War. Surviving ancient accounts do not clearly describe the manner of the Roman conquest.
According to local tradition, the fortress was entered through an underground drainage passage.
In Volume I of Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia (1854), Michele Amari recounts the 859 siege of Castrogiovanni (Enna). He describes the city's extraordinary defenses in detail and then narrates how it was finally taken. A Byzantine defector revealed a way into the fortress, after which a select group of Muslim soldiers approached the north face of the citadel. They entered through an aqueduct (acquedotto) that passed beneath the wall. Once inside, they killed the guards and opened the gates for the main army.
Under the castle was the ancient Sican temple of Ceres, site of the widespread cult of that goddess in the whole of Italy, which was described by Cicero.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was used by the Byzantines and resisted Arab assaults for many years. After their victory, the latter rebuilt the fortress around the 10th century; the castle was also used by their successors in Sicily, the Normans. Two centuries later, architect Richard of Lentini was commissioned by Frederick II, Emperor and King of Sicily, to restore it as a summer residence. He added 20 towers and called in a garrison coming from the Langobardia minor (Calabria), whence the castle's…