Oriental marbles in Castel del Monte in Andria (Puglia, Italy)

The Mediterranean area is characterized by the great use in the classical age of ancient marbles that were widely reused in subsequent eras. A similar fortune also happened for the construction of Castel del Monte where many materials from the archaeological sites of Capitanata were used as quarries of building materials: the ancient Luceria, whose ruins continued to be used by Charles I of Anjou; Sypontum, rich in ancient marbles; Herdonia, on the edge of which Frederick built a castle reusing a Norman manor; Salapia, where a hunting residence was built; Canusium itself, an inexhaustible reservoir of spolia in the Norman age. Finally, it will be highlighted how most of the ancient marbles are spolia from the Roman age, and that the more elaborate, well preserved and placed according to precise dispositive and functional criteria the spoil was, the greater the prestige conferred by its use. In fact, the spolia still bears, even through the centuries, those elements dear to the symbolism of the Roman Empire, and attributable to the exaltation of the client and the valorization of the space in which the reuse took place.