THE SLIT
ITA
ENG
Several times during the visit it will be mentioned that the Malavilla belongs to the building type of the house-fortress, i.e. a fortified peasant house.
According to this logic, the ground floor was the weak point of the building and therefore could not be provided with large openings that could expose it to possible dangers of intrusion. The house was in fact protected by the “armoured” entrance portal and its locking system with posts embedded in the masonry. On the north-eastern side is therefore a small rectangular opening, very narrow and high, the “feritoia”. It could be used as a hole from which to fire blunderbusses, bows, crossbows, but its dimensions were conceived to be a guarantee of anti-intrusion, given its very small size that did not even require the addition of gratings. The interior of the embrasure is particularly interesting from a constructional point of view: note the detail of the structure of the splay of the embrasure composed of courses of sandstone to form a sort of ladder, which is visible due to the fall of lime, but which would actually have been plastered to form a smooth, uniform slide inwards. This architecture was conceived for two reasons: to facilitate defence operations and the use of weapons, but also to widen, albeit slightly, the diffusion of light.