Castello di Monte Tauro, Medieval castle on Monte Tauro, Taormina, Italy

Castello di Monte Tauro is a fortress ruin perched on a hilltop near Taormina, consisting today of scattered stone walls and structural fragments across the site. The remnants indicate a fortified position that once commanded views across the sea and surrounding territory.

The first fortification on the rock dates to the Byzantine era, when it served as an outpost against Arab incursions; in 902 Ibrahim II took Taormina after a long siege. Count Roger I retook it in 1078 by cutting supplies and building twenty-two wooden towers around the town. The surviving structure shows mainly Swabian-Frederician architecture, and in 1353 a source distinguishes Monte Tauro from the castle of Mola.

The name Monte Tauro comes from the Greek Tauromenion, the settlement whose lower acropolis stood on this rock. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi recorded the fortress above the town in his Book of Roger in 1154, and a 1353 source distinguishes the castle of Monte Tauro from that of Mola as the fortification of the castrum inferius.

The castle sits on the Monte Tauro crag at almost 400 metres, above Taormina, and the surviving structure is reached on foot; the site is a ruin with uneven masonry, broken wall tops and a stepped ascent between high walls, so footing is uneven. From the terrace and upper steps the view runs from the Strait of Messina to the Alcantara valley and Etna.

In Greek and Roman times the rock of Tauro was the lower acropolis of Tauromenion, paired with an upper acropolis on the height now occupied by the castle of Mola; the sources name the two as castrum inferius and castrum superius. The geographer al-Idrisi records a fortress above the town in his Book of Roger of 1154.