Rocca (architecture)

A ''rocca'' () is a type of Italian fortified stronghold or fortress, typically located on a hilltop, beneath or on which the inhabitants of a historically clustered village or town might take refuge at times of trouble. Generally under its owners' patronage, the settlement might hope to find prosperity in better times. A ''rocca'' might in reality be no grander than a fortified farmhouse. A more extensive ''rocca'' would be referred to as a '' castello'' ().

The ''rocca'' in Roman times would more likely be a site of a venerable cult than a dwelling, like the high place of Athens, its Acropolis. Though the earliest documentation is not earlier than the eleventh century, it was during the Lombard times that farming communities, which had presented a Roman pattern of loosely distributed farmsteads or self-sufficient Roman villa, moved from their traditional places on the fringes of the best arable lands in river valleys, where they were dangerously vulnerable from the Roman roads, to defensive positions, such as had once been occupied by Etruscan settlements, before the settled conditions of the Pax Romana. Historian J.B. Ward-Perkins made the following observation regarding the ''rocca'' at the town of Falerii.

Similarly, in Greek-speaking Campania, the inhabitants of Paestum finally abandoned their town after raids by Saracens and moved a few miles to the top of a cliff, calling the new settlement Agropoli (i.e., "acropolis"). Where such fortress villages were sited at the end of a ridge, protected on three sides by steep, cliff-like escarpments, the ''rocca'' was often sited to control the narrow access along the crest of the spur.

Locally the term ''rocca'' simply designates the local fortified high place.

Examples

Specific examples show the range of structures that may be called a ''rocca'':
*Rocca Sanvitale, began in the 13th century, mostly completed by the 15th century, is a remarkable fortress house in the ''comune'' (municipality) of Fontanellato, near Parma.
* Rocca Flea is a fortified ''palazzo'' in the ''comune'' of Gualdo Tadino, in the Umbria region.
*In Valletta, Malta, Casa Rocca Piccola is one of the last remaining unconverted ''palazzi'', that is still lived in today by a noble family.
*In Sardinia, the Rocca Doria, a stronghold of the Doria of Genoa, gives its name to the commune Monteleone Rocca Doria.

From the earliest stage, when church and ''rocca'' were the only stone structures,Ward-Perkins 1962:401 points out that the familiar "medieval" character of surviving villages, with their cobbled streets and stone houses washed with colorful ''intonaco'', upon examination are invariably structures built in the sixteenth century and later. "the distinction between 'castles' and 'villages' is already one of degree rather than kind". (Ward-Perkins 1962:401). Their protective ''rocca'' has extended its name to many other small communities:
* Roccacasale is a ''comune'' in the province of L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region.
* Rocca di Papa in the region called '' Castelli Romani'' in the hills surrounding Lazio has given its name to its ''comune''. Twelfth-century documents name the Castrum Rocce de Papa ("Rock Castle of the Pope"), because here lived Pope Eugene III.
*Rocca Sinibalda is a ''comune'' in the province of Rieti, in the Lazio region, located about 50 km northeast of Rome.
*Rocca Canterano, Rocca Priora, Rocca Massima, Rocca di Cave, Rocca Santo Stefano, Rocca d'Arce are also ''comuni'' in the Lazio region.
* Rocca Grimalda is a ''comune'' in the province of Alessandria, in the Piedmont region; it was a nest of bandits in the eighteenth century. Rocca Canavese, Rocca Cigliè, Rocca d'Arazzo, Rocca de' Baldi are also ''comuni'' in the Piedmont region.
* Rocca Pietore is a ''comune'' in the province of Belluno, in the Veneto region
* Roccaraso is a ''comune'' in the province of L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region.
* Rocca Susella and Rocca de' Giorgi are in the province of Pavia, in the Lombardy region.
* Rocca di Manerba del Garda, in the ''comune'' of Manerba del Garda, in the Lombardy region.
* Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena is a ''comune'' in the province of Savona, in the in Liguria region.
* Rocca San Casciano is a ''comune'' in the province of Forlì-Cesena, in the Emilia-Romagna region.
* Rocca San Giovanni is a ''comune'' in the province of Chieti, in the Abruzzo region.
* Rocca d'Evandro is a ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the Campania region.
* Rocca Pia is a ''comune'' in the province of L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region.
*Rocca Imperiale is a ''comune'' in the province of Cosenza, in the Calabria region.
* Rocca di Urbisaglia is a 16th-century military fortification in Urbisaglia, in the Marche region.

Notes

{{Fortifications

Architecture in Italy
Hills of Italy
Hilltowns in Italy
Roman towns types