Latrine towers. Models, uses and diffusion in Mediterranean architecture from the 12th to the 14th century

Sources on the types and uses of latrines in medieval architecture are sporadic and general. Moreover, studies on the subject are rare, unlike those published for the Roman period. The aim of this paper is to study the hygienic spaces in thirteenth-century residences, in particular the latrine towers in curial palaces, analyzing their models and later applications. The historical and typological-architectural context will also be established by means of comparisons with hygienic facilities used in the Islamic context, in Norman and Swabian castles and palaces in southern Italy, in European residential and castral buildings, and in Outremer crusade architecture, with particular attention to that of the Hospitaller Order: the Crac des Chevaliers and the Acre complex. These are two very important testimonies in the development and diffusion of the latrine tower model in Europe, of which the tower of the Pontifical Palace of Viterbo is one of the first examples. The Tower of Viterbo was built during the works commissioned by Pope Clement IV. He was a supporter and admirer of the Hospitallers, with whom he had been in frequent contact. Charles I of Anjou also had close contacts with the Hospitallers, and he was probably responsible for the construction of another latrine tower in the residence of the SS. Quattro Coronati in Rome. The Viterbo tower typology was the model for the similar structure in the Papal Palace in Avignon.