QR5 THE WINDOWS WITH THE SEATS
On the second floor, as well as on the first, of the south-west side, there are windows with side seats. These are valuable elements, typical of castles and fortresses, tower-houses and fortified houses and not simple rural buildings, a reminder of the wealth of construction in the Malavilla and the patrons who certainly financed its construction.
The function of these seats was twofold: to allow small tasks to be carried out with the benefit of natural light, particularly by women who did a great deal of work to rule the house and recover any waste that could be converted into a resource.
Secondly for the defence of the building and the monitoring of the territory. The Malavilla in fact was certainly part of a system of small fortified buildings that could act as a garrison of the territory. From the window on the second floor, in fact, it was possible to exit onto a wooden balcony, used to collect pigeon eggs but also as a patrol and therefore as an element of defence both of the house-fort itself, and of the territory of which Castrignano Castle was the dominant feudal building until 1500. It certainly needed to control the two main routes connecting the Fabiola Valley to the Baganza Valley through the Tino d'Oro and to the Parma Valley through the passage of the current Cozzano pine forest. Military control but also economic control given the presence of the Via Longobarda, a historic road that in the Middle Ages connected Parma to the sea.
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