The fortified settlement of Rocca di Mondragone is attested in documents written at the beginning of the 12th century. The absence of data relating to earlier occupation on this hill site, both Roman and late antique, would seem to negate the hypothesis that the early medieval fortified settlement was built on top of a pre-existing defensive system. However, the existence of a prehistoric settlement on the western side of the hill does constitute an earlier form of settlement. The first phase of the fortified settlement began in the Norman period with the upper defensive enclosure and the first village within it. Subsequent development, until the late Angevin and Aragonese periods, saw the creation of the an outer ‘borgo’ and the construction of the so-called “residential palace”.

The 2006 excavation campaign aimed to increase the area investigated in the preceding campaigns (2001-2005), that is the summit plateau and the area between the cistern/tower and the rooms up against the southern defensive wall.
The original fortified centre of the entire complex stood on the hill summit, surrounded by a spindle-shaped defensive wall. Several of the buildings in the village at the foot of the first enclosure wall on the western side of the hill also stood within a defensive wall. Within these rooms situated up against the wall a glazed blue and white ceramic pavement came to light. A fragment of Deruta pottery was also found and with the pavement gives a chronology that runs between the 15th and 16th centuries.

In the area between the cistern/tower and the rooms by the southern defences previous campaigns had revealed mortar floors relating to the final occupation phase of the plateau’s central area. This area had been inhabited since the time of Federico II and abandoned in the second half of the 15th century, as attested by pottery and metal finds and numerous coins datable to between the 13th and the end of the 15th century. The new excavations recovered more fragments of plain ware pottery, both refined and coarse, painted with red bands, together with fragments of wood and animal bones.