Castello di Matinale, Medieval Hohenstaufen castle in San Felice a Cancello, Italy.

Castello di Matinale is a stone fortress in San Felice a Cancello built with defensive walls and towers typical of 13th-century military design. The structure shows how soldiers could defend and watch over the surrounding lands from its elevated position.

Tommaso II d'Aquino, count of Acerra, is credited with building the castle around the time of his marriage to Margherita di Svevia, an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Frederick II, before 1247; her dowry included the Suessola fief to which Cancello belonged. Local tradition instead traces an earlier ninth-century Lombard fortification to a certain Rudovaco, later restored or rebuilt by the Norman Ramperto and the Mattaloni counts in the twelfth century. The castle hosted the Sicilian kings William the Bad and Manfred, later King Ladislaus I and the Carafa; abandoned in the fifteenth century, it served as an inn and in 1799 as Jean Étienne Championnet's headquarters.

Local tradition links the castle's name Rudovaco to a 9th-century Lombard fortification attributed to a certain Rudovaco, later held by Count Cullezio of Acerra. The building itself is tied to the wedding of Tommaso II d'Aquino and Margherita di Svevia, illegitimate daughter of Frederick II, before 1247. In the 15th century, stripped of its military role, it housed an inn and probably an archpriestal church dedicated to Saint Thomas the Apostle.

The castle stands on a rise above the entrance to the Suessola valley, in the Cancello hamlet of San Felice a Cancello. Only the south-eastern wing survives, so the interior courtyard layout is best read from the outside walls. The main portal opens on the south-west side beside one of the towers.

The fortress sits on an elevated hilltop that offers views across the wide landscape of Caserta province. From this vantage point, visitors quickly understand why ancient rulers chose this exact location for a stronghold.