Among its many different traces of the past, in the Brindisi area, fortifications are the most significant expression of civil architecture, for there is a conspicuous amount of fortified buildings erected and later modified with the prime objective of protecting a land that lay exposed to incursions and raids. The many types of castle also included the "domus", the chosen places for relaxing, hunting and love affairs of the ruling classes that passed through the area, leaving indelible traces of their ambitious power. Frederick II, the mythical "Puer Apuliae", left the mark of his charismatic personality at Brindisi in the mighty Castello di Terra, so named to distinguish it from the other castle built by order of Frederick I of Aragon to defend the harbour at Brindisi. And at Oria, on the site of the old Messapic acropolis, stands a mighty mansion, a symbolic monument to the Swabian ruler. In every town and every village, our itinerary in search of castles discovers a tower, a rampart, a manor or at least a place name that recalls the presence of fortification on that site. At Ceglie Messapica, the Sanseverino fortress with its many towers looms high among the white houses of the townspeople. Carovigno is clustered around the rampart of the single, almond-shaped tower, built in the fifteenth century by the Prince of Taranto Del Balzo Orsini to protect the old hamlet against Saracen raids. A few kilometres away, in the main square of San Vito dei Normanni, stands the castle built in the thirteenth century by order of Boemondo d'Altavilla and later altered until it assumed its present fifteenth-century appearance. Castles or splendid fortified palaces summarise the feudal history of Mesagne, Francavilla Fontana, Cellino San Marco, Torre Santa Susanna. Other signs of castles in the territory are the many coastal towers all along the Brindisi coastline; they are the remains of 431 fortifications which formed the defence line set up in the sixteenth century, under the kingdom of Naples, to defend the coast against pirates.