The Castle of Lagopesole is located at 820 meters in a homogeneous village built in the 11th century and enlarged by Frederick II of Swabia in 1242 on the remains of previous Norman-Swabian buildings before it became a hunting lodge and summer "otium". The Angevins complete the building by restoring the roof and equipping it with an aqueduct, stables and a small lake in front of which eels were bred, fished in the Versentino and Salpi lakes.
The castle is divided into two parts, one residential and the other military, probably of Norman foundation. Inside, there are two courtyards; the residential areas are gathered on two levels and on three sides around the main one in the northern part of the building. In the western room on the upper floor (the so-called "Emperor's Hall"), one can still admire the sculptures of the capitals and the shelves supporting the original roofs.
At the center of the minor courtyard, there is a robust square tower, the donjon, whose position slightly rotated with respect to the plan would confirm the hypothesis of a pre-existence of the Norman age to a specifically military destination. The tower, now closed to the public, contains only two internal rooms, the upper one with toilets made in the thickness of the walls and a lower compartment with a cistern. Next to the permanent exhibition documenting the site's medieval excavations, the castle houses the multimedia museum "The World of Federico II", an itinerary dedicated to the myth of Federico II.
