Geometry lesson

This famous World Heritage castle built around 1240 by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederic II is famous for being without known purpose.
Since the building sits on top of a hill with 360 degree views and a clear view of the sea 24 km away, experts have suggested that it was a fortress. Sounds more like a resort to me, though it does look like a keep and is believed to cover an earlier fort. From a military perspective it has shortcomings: no curtain wall, no drawbridge, no moat, no stables.
The original marble and furnishings were removed long go, but as a home it would do during warm weather if one didn't eat: there are no kitchens and only 2 fireplaces.
The best anyone can come up with is that Fred used it to fly his falcons. The daughter of my last host, Milli, came here on a school trip a a couple of weeks ago and left mystified.
The castle is designed as a perfect octagon, 123 feet across, with eight rooms and an octagonal centre court. Octagonal towers on each corner , taller originally than nowadays, carry the octagonal theme downward to the missing Islamic, octagonal, floor tiles. The number 3 also re-occurs: in the entrance hall there are 3 rose and 3 mullioned windows as well as an engraved triangle, there are three towers with staircases.
Frederick founded the University of Naplesand was friendly with the great Leonardo Fibonacci, (who introduced the Arabic representations for zero and ten into Europe.) Given that he was a scholar and architect, spoke Arabic as well as Latin, and had been on a Crusade, it is perhaps not surprising that people have been searching for symbolic meanings in what might otherwise be just a rich man's folly. All the fuss is about the geometry of the architecture, which is 'impecable' (as the French would say.) This leads the intelligentsia on a hunt for symbolic meanings and associations; a search that can continue forever and fund numerous research grants.
Onto the octaganal floorplan can be can be projected any number of pentagrams, isoceles triangles, stars , circles and so on to tantalise the student. The number 8 itself has secular, religious and mythological meanings. The figure 8 rotated 90 degrees becomes the "lazy eight" representing infinity. There are eight compass points and eight is the union of divine infinity and human finiteness and resurrection. 3 denotes truth and the triangle perfection. Even the shadows in the courtyard form the Golden Ratio used in the Fibonacci Sequence.
Here are some other cluesto hidden meanings that have been "found":
+ Egyptian epigraphs are written onto the structure. (Frederick is regarded by some as the last “Faraone.”
+ the castle lies on the meridian connecting the Cathedral of Chartres, the Duomo of Milan and the Egyptian pyramids - Templar connection?
+ it lies halfway between the French cathedral and the Sphinx of Cheops.
and so on and so on. A contemporary observed it and wrote: "Stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis", (wonder of the world and marvelous novelty.) And that wasn't because of the advanced plumbing system, which uses rain water for the toilets and bathrooms of the fortress.
Fred died from dysentery in 1250 and there is no evidence that he actually used the place. His son Manfred died in battle in 1266, and Frederick's three grandsons were condemned to life imprisonment in the Castel del Monte. One escaped after 30 years, only to disappear into Egypt.
I had to brave the dozen busloads of tourists visiting the site, taking advantage of the interstitial gaps between the flocks circulating to get a few snapshots before taking the ferry to Albania. Whilst it only takes 30 minutes to walk through the place, even with the exhibition of paintings in each room, a better impression can be had by looking at the plans and drawing lines connecting different points: then the symbology becomes apparent.Read more