Fortified masserie in Calabria. Architectural features and typological models

In southern Italy, and also in Calabria, the fortified farm represents a typical building model to manage,control and defend the territory and the rural heritage. This occurs especially in areas where, before theagricultural reform of the mid-twentieth century, the latifundium was the main model of propertyorganization. The geographical position of the region, which has always been exposed to incursions andlooting, has favored, in the rural buildings, the presence of defensive morpho-structural elements andabove all the spread of typological plants that make the building system closed to the outside andtherefore protected.This is precisely the main topic of the research. Through the study, survey andanalysis of 26 fortified farms on the Calabrian territory, we have identified three particularly widespreadtypological-settlement models: the fortress farm, the court farm, the block farm.