The Viceregal Tower of Cetara
Located about 25 kilometres from our boutique hotel, the Viceregal Tower is Cetara’s most representative monument. It has a very complex structure, the result of the integration of a cylindrical Angevin tower and a double-height viceregal tower. For centuries, it served as a lookout to protect the coast from enemy incursions. Today, it preserves the cultural identity of the village through the various museum itineraries set up inside it.
The tower was built by the Angevins in the 14th century to serve as a lookout and first line of defence. Its construction was made necessary by the outbreak of the War of the Vespers (1282-1302) in Sicily, from where ships laden with armed men set sail to threaten the towns of the Amalfi Coast. Later, following the Barons’ Conspiracy of 1460, the tower was also used as a prison (among the famous prisoners was Don Federico, son of King Ferdinand of Aragon). After the defeat of the Christian fleet at Gerbe and before the Battle of Lepanto (1571), which marked the definitive end of Ottoman aspirations for dominance over the Mediterranean, the coast was infested with Turkish pirates. It was therefore decided to build a new square-based tower close to the Angevin one. The work was entrusted in 1567 to the master mason Camillo Casaburi di Cava, on behalf of the Royal Court. A square plan was chosen because it offered advantages in terms of the placement of cannons on each side and the possibility of accommodating numerous people. After being included in the list of towers no longer considered fortifications by decree of King Victor Emmanuel II, it was sold to private individuals, who renovated it and adapted it for residential use. With the change in the building’s intended use, two floors were added, which altered its appearance. After several changes of ownership, the tower was acquired by the Municipality of Cetar in 1998.
Since 2011, the tower has housed a Civic Museum with permanent exhibitions by the Cetara artist Manfredi Nicoletti and numerous painters from the coast, the so-called “costaioli”, as well as the Museo Vivo of ceramics by another great Cetara artist, Ugo Marano (an exhibition he conceived in the early 1970s and was able to reproduce in the tower of Cetara shortly before his death). In 2018, the first Museum Cellar dedicated to Fishing and Colatura di Alici (a sauce with a very intense flavour obtained from the fermentation of salted anchovies) was inaugurated in the rooms of the original Angevin lower part. The museum offers workshops and tastings to directly involve visitors and also includes a small library containing books, historical documents, newspapers, magazines and photographs dedicated to colatura, fishing and the roots of Cetara.
Photo gallery © Torre di Cetara
