THE NICHES
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Many buildings in the area feature niches carved into the masonry using a trilithic system. These niches come in various shapes but serve the same purpose: to hold candles for lighting the rooms. In fact, in peasant houses, 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), 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 possible that they were also used to store objects.
Much rarer are niches with a lintel composed of two planes inclined at 45°: it has not been possible to understand whether this served a specific function or was merely an aesthetic choice, or whether they were made this way simply because it was not necessary to have particularly large slabs available in an area, we should remember, that 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?