Amendolea Castle has Norman origins, and it was enlarged subsequently in the late Middle Ages. It is now made up of two recognizable parts. One is the entrance of parallel piped shape, separated by a wall around the residential area. And the second is the rectangular hall of the latter, with very high walls and arched windows and small towers, one of which, isolated, served as a dungeon. With an irregular plan and strong walls, the Castle houses a chapel tower, built in the Norman age. At the second level of the tower, there is a small apsidal church with an entrance facing south, as in the Byzantine tradition. The castle was rebuilt several times, until the earthquake of 1783 that caused important collapses that could not be fixed.
References:Goryōkaku (五稜郭) (literally, 'five-point fort') is a star fort in the Japanese city of Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido. The fortress was completed in 1866. It was the main fortress of the short-lived Republic of Ezo.
Goryōkaku was designed in 1855 by Takeda Ayasaburō and Jules Brunet. Their plans was based on the work of the French architect Vauban. The fortress was completed in 1866, two years before the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It is shaped like a five-pointed star. This allowed for greater numbers of gun emplacements on its walls than a traditional Japanese fortress, and reduced the number of blind spots where a cannon could not fire.
The fort was built by the Tokugawa shogunate to protect the Tsugaru Strait against a possible invasion by the Meiji government.
Goryōkaku is famous as the site of the last battle of the Boshin War.