From the top of the promontory towering over the sea, the castle still seems to watch over the island.
Like when, then a modern fortress, it defended the village from the invasions of the Saracens, who had sown so much death and destruction in the previous centuries.
It had also happened after the D'Avalos, already lords of the city of Ischia, had obtained dominion over Procida from Charles V, in 1529.
It was a few decades later that Cardinal Innico D'Avalos decided to secure the village of Terra Casata, where the islanders took refuge when they sighted enemy sails.
The very narrow streets between the houses perched on the promontory and the difficult access from the Asino beach, to which the people of Procida had entrusted their defense until then, were replaced by an imposing city wall. It was built around the new building, overlooking the sea right in front of the village. And so, around 1560/70, Terra Casata became Terra Murata.
The architects Cavagna and Tortelli took care of building the stately residence. It changed the face of that place and revolutionized the urban layout of the entire island. To access the fortress, a new road was opened, the current Salita Castello. As part of that intervention, a large space was leveled around the fortress, still known today as the Spianata, used as cultivated land. And it was as a result of that novelty that the town of Corricella arose on the beach dominated by the castle. The convent of Santa Margherita Nuova was also founded at that time, while the ancient abbey of San Michele, in the heart of Terra Murata, assumed the configuration it still retains.
The sumptuous residence of the D'Avalos remained in the availability of the family until the eighteenth century. Throughout the period of their control it hosted King Charles, who chose it as his first royal hunting site. Subsequently, Ferdinand IV also attended it assiduously in the favorable season for hunting. In 1734 the building became the Royal Palace, the first summer residence of Charles III of Bourbon who had just ascended the throne of Naples. Ten years later, it definitively entered the Crown's patrimony due to the debts accumulated by Giambattista D'Avalos and became one of the twenty-two Royal Delights, among the sovereign's favorite places.
In 1815 a military school was established there, then, around 1830, it was transformed into a prison, which also housed various political prisoners, such as Cesare Rosaroll and Luigi Settembrini. The conversion into a "penal bath" transformed the historic structure in line with the new function, which it retained until 1988. It was only after a long period of abandonment that in 2013 the building became the property of the Municipality of Procida. From there began the new phase of recovery interventions and opening to the public.
The monumental complex, distorted by its long use as a prison, has kept that imprint intact and very strong, which has almost erased all traces of the pre-existing one, apart from the façade, in Renaissance style with characteristic piperno finishes, and the painted ceilings of the large halls, divided to accommodate the cells of the prisoners. The barracks of the guards is a nineteenth-century extension like other rooms of the newer prison. It was made up of a building of single cells, which the prisoners had each painted in a different colour, and of a building of collective cells, some with forty guests even with a medical center and the director's house. And the rooms of the draperies, where hemp fabrics were woven and linen items were made, the carpentry and bookbinding. All activities created by the Jesuits to redeem prisoners. While the Spianata, with its approximately two hectares of land, was used for crops and livestock, with the weekly sale of products in a market set up in the prison.
Most of the rooms included in the guided tours still seem to have just been left by the prisoners, with their uniforms, shoes and everyday objects. The last room offers an installation by Alfredo Pirri, entitled 7.0, because it was inaugurated in the morning at seven, since the work was conceived to intercept the first ray of sunshine of the new day.
