The Castle of Bari, erected since the 1131 by the Norman King Ruggero II, is located in the Northwest side of the ancient settlement of the Apulian chief town, in a strategic position for the monitoring and domination of the city. After the construction of the first medieval nucleus, the castle remained abandoned and obsolete for years because of the revolts occurred in Bari until the interventions made under the direction of Fredrik II of Swabia in 1233, which led to the rebirth of this military architecture. In effect, in the Swabian Period, the castle was significantly refurbished and enlarged: the existing curtain wall and towers were preserved, while new fabrics and elements were built, such as the portal and the entrance hall in the courtyard.

At the end of the XIII century, Bari came under the control of the Angevin king Charles I (between 1266 and 1285), which promoted new interventions of restoration and maintenance of the castle, especially in the North side which was probably damaged.

The Aragon period (XVI century) is another important chapter in the historical and constructive evolution of the castle. In fact, the duchess Isabella of Aragon, together with the daughter Bona Sforza, commissioned the excavation of a large moat around the castle to protect it from the landside.

In the 1501, the ante-wall, the bastions, as well as machicolations and embrasures, were erected to adapt the castle to the introduction of the gunpowder. After the death of her mother, the duchess Bona Sforza continued to modernize the castle and to repair the damages occurred in those decades.

The castle, in the XVIII century, became a fortified prison, preserving its military function throughout the Bourbon domination.

Subsequently, once excluded from the properties of the Reign of Naples in the 1831, the castle was acquired by the Municipality of Bari, which converted it to a station of the Carabinieri Army with a prison. At the end the XIX century the fortress, abandoned and damaged, was in a very low state of conservation.

In 1935, the Italian Ministry of Public Education started managing and restoring the castle, with the first interventions aimed to the enhancement of the historical and medieval values, threatened by the Nineteenth-century manumissions.

Finally, since the 1937, the castle became the head office of the Apulian Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, beyond that Restoration Laboratory, and thanks to the several interventions made in the last decades it has been converted to a public museum representing a social and cultural centrality for the citizenship.