THE NICHES
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Many buildings in the area feature trilithic niches carved into the thickness of the walls. These niches come in various shapes but serve the same purpose: to hold candles or oil lamps for lighting the rooms. In fact, in peasant homes, there was little furniture and what there was was basic: a chest, a cupboard (al tavler), a bed, a wardrobe, a corner cabinet, a wood box (al casòn 'dla lèggna), a flour box, straw chairs (scrana) and little else. None of these were suitable for holding open flame lighting. In addition, the niches managed to create a little diffusion of light and slightly amplify the lighting. It is not excluded that they were also used to store objects. Much rarer were niches with a lintel composed of two planes inclined at forty-five degrees: it has not been possible to understand whether this served a specific function or was merely aesthetic. Or whether they were made this way due to the scarcity of particularly large slabs in an area that, we should remember, is predominantly limestone and almost devoid of outcrops of cut sandstone (which are present in other areas of the Apennines, such as Carniglia or Rusino).
A final suggestion: perhaps their shape, which recalls the façade of Malavilla, was instead an aesthetic choice or a spontaneous manifestation of forms inherent in the local culture?