Identification of the most recent fortified structures and recognition of surviving historical evidence

The Civitella town walls had three main gates: Porta Piazza, Porta S. Antonio and Porta delle Vene. Another gate called Porta delle Vigne was opened afterwards. The only surviving gate is Porta Piazza, today’s Porta Napoli, which has always been the main gate into Civitella. Few remains are now visible of the former Porta S. Antonio, Porta delle Vene and Porta delle Vigne gates.
The buttressed earthwork supporting the present Piazza F. Pepe was also an integral part of the ancient town wall, which endured and threw back the siege of 1557. In the 1900s all the buttresses were fitted with archivolts. At the point where the buttress of from Porta delle Vigne joined the earthworks of the square, a barbican with a small part of the surviving curtain wall can still be seen.
Between the Porta delle Vene and Porta delle Vigne gates, there were three towers with a circular base. The best preserved tower, located along a stretch of the curtain wall, is in the immediate vicinity of the place where the Porta delle Vigne gate stood. The only partly visible tower close to what was the Porta delle Vene gate, has undergone recent restoration work which has partly hidden the structure, not only at its base, but particularly round its outline.
A section of masonry built during the 1960s can be seen between the Porta delle Vigne and Porta S. Antonio gates, made of light-coloured travertine ashlars set with cement mortar, to replace a part of the Aragonese walls which had collapsed. In relation to the existing town wall, this integration was laid at the same level on the northern side, whereas it is at a level about ten centimetres higher on the southern side.
With regard to the fortress structures, there have been numerous restoration interventions, all carried out in the past century. The north-east side, in particular, is characterized by a definite prevalence of light-coloured travertine, laid with cement mortar, in some cases placed at a level slightly below the one of the masonry attributed to the Habsburg period, which was made of local yellow travertine ashlars laid mainly using clay mortar.
In quite recent times, the church of S. Giacomo and the soldiers’ quarters have also been involved in restoration and reconstruction works, carried out following imitative criteria, which are, in some cases, rather arbitrary. On the other hand, many of the surfaces still make an analysis possible of the original fortress structures, of the plaster facing (strips of mortar with traces of plaster with lime as the binder and fine sand as the aggregate) characterizing the internal rooms, and still showing the signs of the sieges endured.
During the restoration of the fortress, carried out between 1972 and 1984, the bastion of S. Andrea was rebuilt – among other things, in the wrong place - over the remains of a curtain wall of the Aragonese castle and not to the side of the bastion, which can be seen under thick infesting vegetation.