Cabrera Tower and Caricatore

The Cabrera Tower is a tower built to protect the Caricatore di Pozzallo from pirates (i.e. a complex of warehouses on the coast complete with piers and slipways for loading goods onto sailing ships).
The Tower stands, splendid and magnificent, on the cliff of the Pozzallo coast. It was built in the early fifteenth century at the behest of the Count of Modica, Bernat Cabrera, a member of one of the most illustrious Catalan families, the Viscounts Cabrera and Bas and Counts of Osona, who supported and financed the Spanish sovereigns in the reconquest of Sicily and in exchange received the county of Modica confiscated from the rebels of the Chiaramonte family.
The square-plan building with a side of about 20 meters per side and a height of 28 meters from the street level, consists of three floors plus the terrace which currently lacks battlements. It preserves the sixteenth-century bastion on the outside, which juts out into the sea with the imposing terrace, equipped with gun ports for the maneuvering of artillery pieces required by the needs of the defense system of Sicily in the Mediterranean, a sea of raids and conflicts. Following recent restorations, it has been demonstrated that it is not a defense tower but a "palacium" that combined the function of a noble residence with that of a control point for grain and goods that, coming from every part of eastern Sicily, were loaded from the loader. Soldiers and artillerymen served inside the tower, while the knights were responsible for guarding the coast. Cannons of different calibers were placed on the terraces. The tower was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1693. It was rebuilt making some changes to the original project, thus delivering it to the present day, awarded the recognition of "National Monument".