THE CITY AT WAR

10 AND THE SEMANTIC

ARMAMENT OF
RENAISSANCE
ARCHITECTURE
Marion Hilliges

War and destruction affected the architecture and urban planning of the Early
Modern period, even more than scholars have acknowledged so far. In fact, the
necessity of fortifying and modernizing old city walls triggered technical innova-
tions, new construction techniques, and a modern architectural language domi-
nated by symbolism of strength, force, and security.1 This new manner appears
not only in the peninsula of Italy – the region with the most innovative impulse –
but also in most other European countries. As will be shown, this military archi-
tectural manner was a kind of “international style” disseminated by Italian engi-
neers. This chapter will provide synthetic perspective of the issue, focusing on
some striking aspects and significant examples of modern regulated cities and edi-
fices in this design vocabulary.

Cannon, Fortifications, and Geometrization

As early as the fifteenth century the Sienese painter, architect, and military engineer
Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501) recognized and described in his Trattati
the significance of the cannon for the modernization of warfare and the science of
fortifications. In a key passage for the art of modern warfare, he wrote:

Finally the “modern” found an instrument of such violence that there are no brave-
ness, no weapons no buckler and no strength of walls against it […]. And for sure,

The Companions to the History of Architecture, Volume I, Renaissance and Baroque Architecture.
Edited by Alina Payne.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2 City, War, and Religion

against this force named bombard all ancient machines can be indicated as vane and
needless. In conclusion you should call it, not without reason, not a human but a
diabolic act and invention.2

Francesco di Giorgio’s experience with the modern cannon – acquired in numerous

battles in the service of the condottiere Federico da Montefeltro (1422–82) – made
clear to him that the old strategies of defense were in fact defenseless against this
modern offensive weapon. Along with the outmoded weaponry of medieval
defense, he mentioned the relatively fragile city walls, which could no longer with-
stand the massive penetrative power of the modern cannon. Although Francesco di
Giorgio could hardly have foreseen the revolutionary cultural changes that modern
firearm-based warfare would bring about in the centuries to come, it was very clear
to him how devastating the effects of the new weaponry were on medieval defense
walls. And it was his experience of this new weaponry that very likely moved him
to develop and systematize not just new but absolutely unprecedented defensive
works and technical devices in his architectural theory.
Along with Francesco di Giorgio, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was
primarily Italians like Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Antonio da Sangallo the
Younger (1484–1546) from Florence who concerned themselves extensively with
new methods of fortification in both the papal and princely contexts. This preoc-
cupation with modern fortifications was the result of numerous and decades-long
wars between the Italian states. Indeed, Italy saw an intensified military build-up
owing to innumerable feuds between Italian princedoms resulting from the wars of
conquest such as that of Charles VIII of France (1470–1498), who marched over the
Alps to Naples, and from the perennial threat of Ottoman expansion into southern
Italy and Venetian territory.3
The increased deployment of long-range moveable cannons with great penetra-
tive force played the decisive role in this paradigm change in the science of forti-
fications. From a defensive standpoint, the medieval town with its high walls and
towers had become a risk and the reduction of these walls a necessity.4 The old city
walls were replaced with a complicated and highly technical bastion-like system of
fortifications that spread far and wide and altered the European landscape.
Whereas previously cities had a long tradition of high walls and towers notched
with battlements – giving the city a vertical thrust – the widespread use of cannons
in warfare caused a more horizontal appearance.5 Massive, static turrets and corner
towers were replaced by dynamically and aggressively outward-jutting bastions.6
At the basis of the new defense style was the imperative that cannons be able to
provide mutual flanking fire for the fortifications on which they stood. Sixteenth-
century treatises on fortresses make it abundantly clear that the bastion’s jutting,
arrow-like outcropping originated from the need to avoid dead-grounds, that is, the
triangular space in front of a turret that could not be defended through flanking fire.
Carlo Theti (1529–89), an Italian architect active in Dresden and Vienna, was
only one of many who described the historical development of the bastion, in a
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 3

Figure 10.1 Carlo Theti, Discorsi delle fortificationi, Venice

1589. Credit: Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, Credit: M. Hilliges.

treatise on fortifications.7 According to Theti, the newly emergent artillery – which

could shoot farther than the crossbow and arquebus – was so powerful that it became
necessary to improve the city walls and enlarge the towers as well as increase the
distance between them. Neither square nor round towers were suitable, for their
faces (the outer surfaces of any works projecting forward that meet to form a salient
angle) could not profit from flanking fire (Figure 10.1). The space “D” (dead ground)
always remained undefended. Ultimately their faces had to be designed such that
they could benefit from artillery support from the flanks, as can be seen in the fourth
diagram in Figure 10.1. Such was the origin of the bastion’s triangular or pentagonal
form. But numerous drawings and buildings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
century show that the dead ground, which was quite hazardous from a defensive
point of view, was a determining factor neither in the development of the bastion’s
form nor in the systematization of modern fortifications.8 Moreover, in northern
Europe the turret continued to be built for another century without any great for-
feitures from a defensive standpoint; and the Ottomans, for their part, never did
introduce the bastion-style of fortification.9
According to the most recent research, the value of mathematics and the logic of
geometry evident in the modern system were more important for the spread of the
angled bastion than any presumed advantage for defense.10 It was precisely owing
to the development of a new system of defense that could stand up to the instru-
ments of modern warfare that the mathematical sciences increasingly gained in sig-
nificance. In the early sixteenth century, precise ballistic calculations and the rapid
4 City, War, and Religion

development of the art of surveying allowed for the measurement of cannonball

trajectories and their being committed to paper in the form of illustrations as a sys-
tem of lines of fire. It was this “mapping” of intersecting lines of fire that allowed
artists and engineers to develop a new defense system that went beyond the bastion
form. The goal was to design the most effective ground plan to provide flanking fire
for all parts of the structure – and clearly the starting point for this approach was the
principle of covering or flanking fire itself. The defenders’ shots had to scrape along
the walls of all fortifications so as to hinder the entry of the enemy. To my knowl-
edge, Leonardo da Vinci was the first to commit to paper the flight of a cannonball
as a straight line (circa 1500) when he turned to developing and systematizing for-
tifications.11 The drawing for the fortifications of Piombino (circa 1504) shows a
series of three variations on casemates or gun emplacements that are positioned
in a straight row or arranged in the shape of a crescent. Emanating from the round,
angular or parabola-shaped gun emplacements, Leonardo drew embrasures
that are concentrated in the recesses of the zigzag wall of the city and which then
end in little circles signifying the cannonballs, which in turn signify the extent of the
field of fire. The lines of fire cross at angles that are contingent on the gun empla-
cements. The virtual flights of the cannonballs create a dense web of lines in the
area in front of the city’s wall, signifying the potential for a hail of cannonballs
essentially covering the entire run-up to the city walls. The network of lines
demonstrates that not an inch of the walls remained unprotected.12
Almost half a century later, in his plan for fortifying Parma, the military theore-
tician Francesco de Marchi (1504–76) also sketched the flight of cannonballs. It was
through this complex web of lines that de Marchi emphasized not only the bastioned
area’s star shape but demonstrated the system of mutual flanking fire as the basis of
his plan. Fired from the gun emplacements on the bastion, the cannonballs would
closely scrape by the flanks of their neighboring bastions. The lines of fire originated
from the curtain walls and the gun platforms and extended deep into the surrounding
territory. The geometric form developed from the system of mutual flanking fire
became a decisive criterion for viable fortifications in the modern era. In 1546, noted
Bresican mathematician Niccolo Tartaglia (1499/1500–57) wrote in his Quesiti e
inventioni diverse (1546) that it was not the thickness but the form of the walls that
was the determining factor in their overall quality.13
Euclidean geometry became the basis for calculable geometric figures that were
committed to paper with compass, protractor, and ruler. The new surveying meth-
ods made it possible to turn the fortification drawings into reality. A treatise on for-
tifications became inconceivable without an introductory chapter on Euclidean
geometry and surveying techniques.14 Sparked by the first treatises on architecture
and fortifications by such authors as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), Giovanni Battista
Belluzzi (1506–1554), and Girolamo Maggi (1523–72), an international discourse
was kindled among architects and engineers with respect to the most secure and
effective defenses. Starting in the latter half of the sixteenth century the architectura
militaris increasingly disappeared from the architectural treatises, emerging as its
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 5

own independent complex of themes that became known as “fortifications treatises”

and entertained a dialogue with other disciplines such as architectural theory,
mathematics, and pyrotechnics. In terms of texts and images, the fortifications
experts developed their own concepts, terms, definitions, and arguments, which
allowed for discussion at an international level. The rapid spread and large
number of fortifications treatises in both the national langauge and Latin enabled
a European-wide communication among these fortifications elites. It was in this
way that the fortifications treatises established a new level of communication among
experts, architects serving princes, and interested laymen. This phenomenon natu-
rally impacted the systematization and classification of individual fortifications sys-
tems. Experts linked certain styles to the names of fortifications engineers such as
Vauban (Sébastian Le Prestre de Vauban, 1633–1707), a French military architect,
or gave them national classifications such as the Italian style, the Dutch style, and
so on. Also of importance for an intensive discourse in the sphere of architectura mili-
taris was the acquisition and imparting of expertise. Along with the education of
young noblemen by private tutors, a not inconsiderable role in the transfer of knowl-
edge was played by the publication of textbooks. Before very long every prince,
every city, and every architect could lay claim to a respectable number of fortifica-
tions treatises in their library.

Fortifications and the City

However, the authors of these treatises did not limit themselves to depictions and
elucidations of fortifications; rather, they discussed city design, starting from the
most effective layout of the defenses and the system of streets to individual build-
ings in the fortress city. After introductory chapters on Euclidean geometry rele-
vant to surveying and ballistics, as well as descriptions of certain individual building
components of fortifications, there would follow numerous sample drafts of for-
tresses with both regular and irregular layouts. In choosing the geometric model
for the city’s ground plan, the military theoreticians resorted to planned cities
derived mostly from fifteenth-century treatises. Building on various designs by
Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Filarete (Antonio Averlino, 1400– circa 1469),
mainly two concepts were discussed: fortified cities with either radial or orthogonal
street systems. Every geometric ground plan was drawn outward from the center
with a compass, the prick of the compass marking the center of the entire complex.
It was at this place that a fortress was often planned, but a central square was almost
always conceived. Depending on the diameter of the circle and the number and
placement of the arrow-like bastions, the ring of bastions could be constructed.
The street system itself was mostly added after the circuit of bastions had been
decided upon, as shown by the unusual drafts of Francesco de Marchi.15
Perhaps the most important city-fortification layout in the sixteenth-century
radial mode is the city of Palmanova, some hundred kilometers northeast of
6 City, War, and Religion

Venice. It was constructed by the Venetians in 1593 to secure the border with the
Habsburg Empire in Friuli and above all to prevent an Ottoman invasion through
the Balkans and into Italy. In order to realize this ambitious project there was a staff
of engineers, theoreticians, and experts on military architecture from the so-called
Ufficio Fortificazioni di Venezia (Office of Fortifications of Venice).16 Leadership of
the project was assumed by Giulio Savorgnan (1510–95), Venetian military and for-
tifications architect. Responsible for the ground plan’s conception and for the archi-
tecture of individual structures were Buonaiuto Lorini (1540–1611), one of the
most important fortifications theoreticians of his time, and Vincenzo Scamozzi
(1548–1616), an architect and theoretician from Vicenza.
Palmanova was constructed from the center outward. In fact, at the very center
was even a pentagonal sconce (earth fortress) with five pointed bastions as a base
camp from which the surveying with the compass and the construction were car-
ried out. After completion of the circuit the sconce was removed and the laying out
of streets and squares was begun.17 The most famous plan of the city of Palmanova
is the engraving of Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg from the end of the
sixteenth century (Figure 10.2). This shows a star-shaped layout with nine bastions
in the new Italian manner surrounded by a wide moat. The scarps are walled and
the bastions are fashioned with orillons. There are no flank courts and no case-
mates. The cannons for covering the faces and flanks are positioned on the large
platforms of the bastions, while long-range shots into the flat run-up to the fortress
are facilitated by the raised cavaliers. There is a small powder magazine on the plat-
form of each bastion. The radial schema of the city’s layout aligns with the sur-
rounding fortification ring, for the streets alternately lead to one of the bastions
or the middle of the curtain wall. As result the city consists of eighteen radial
streets, which intersect four concentric ring roads. Only six of the street axes orig-
inate in the central square, which is in the shape of a hexagon. At their other end
these streets either finish up at one of the three gates or at those bastions located
diametrically opposite. In this way it was possible to translate the nonagon-shaped
rampart into a symmetrical hexagonal city square, while at the same time creating a
subtly differentiated spatial structure within the city that met the needs of military
and citizenry alike. The soldiers’ barracks were positioned along the curtain walls
near the city gates. This ensured quicker movement in the direction of the bastions
and gates as well as more rapid troop movements along the broad axes directly to
the city’s central place of assembly. Six quarters designed for citizenry have a
square as their focus. The streets bisecting the squares, just like the other six sec-
ondary radial streets, end in a block of houses bordering the main square. A variety
of markets could be held in these six peripheral squares without disturbing the sol-
diers drilling on the main square or disrupting the movement of troops in the direc-
tion of the bastions. From a town-planning perspective, military and civil functions
were thus separated from one another.
This street layout was not uncritically accepted. Indeed, the sources record a
dispute between the main actors involved in planning the city. On one side were
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 7

Figure 10.2 Frans Hogenberg, Palma, 1598. Credit: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Buonaiuto Lorini and Giulio Savorgnan, the head of the Ufficio delle fortificazioni,
and on the other were the provveditore Marcantonio Barbaro (1518–95), brother
of the Vitruvius commentator Daniele Barbaro (1513–70), and the military engi-
neer Marchese di Villachiara.18 Whereas Savorgnan and Lorini saw military
demands as paramount, Barbaro and Villachiara saw the city’s development as
being steered by its civilian functions and the requirements of beauty. Accordingly,
the latter two wanted the main streets radiating from the central piazza to lead to
the gates and not, as Lorini and Savorgnan proposed, to the bastions. Barbaro’s
secretary justified his side’s arguments by pointing out to the “belezza” and “mer-
avigliosa vista” (marvelous view) that streets running straight into the piazza would
necessarily afford.19
The senate decided to execute Savorgnan’s plan but also integrate Barbaro’s
and Villachira’s proposed changes with respect to the “belezza” of the street
routes. In his 1597 treatise Le fortificazioni, Buanaiuto Lorini devoted a number
of pages to this problem. He included a two-page engraving of his favorite design
for the city of Palmanova and in the appertaining text he criticized Palmanova’s
street routes. All nine streets emanating from the bastions had to originate in the
central square so as to enable faster communication between that central place of
assembly and the bastions. But the streets were never to lead directly from the
8 City, War, and Religion

gates to the piazza so as to make conquest of the city by its enemies more dif-
ficult. There was also to be a central loggia for the officers on the square; from
this position the officers could take in all the streets and they would have all the
bastions in sight.20 Hence, Lorini was giving the military needs of the city priority.
Not the “meravigliosa vista” but the necessary military overview of unfolding of
events was important. The fortress was not only constructed outward from its
midpoint but was also viewed and surveyed from here.21 This principle of the
overseeing gaze emanating from the center of the layout was illustrated by Lorini
in his blueprints for a commander’s house situated in the central place of assem-
bly (Figure 10.3). Seven streets originate in a square place surrounded by long
barracks. In the middle of the piazza Lorini placed a square commander’s house.
One’s view from the center of the house through the window and door openings
to the bastions is indicated by lines that converge in the exact middle of the com-
mander’s house.
The building planned as loggia or tempio for Palmanova at the city’s exact mid-
point was not executed, but the panopticum-like control of the streets is addressed
in the sources.22 Braun and Hogenberg’s plan also shows a medieval-looking tower

Figure 10.3 Buonaiuto Lorini, plan of the center of a fortified city, Le

fortificationi, Venice 1597, 134. Source: Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome,
Credit: M. Hilliges.
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 9

rising high above the central piazza, from which one could oversee the entire city.
On the one hand, this tower (which was in fact never planned) can be traced back to
the original sconce in the center of Palmanova;23 on the other hand, it also relates
to an admonition in Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404–72) treatise on architecture
(circa 1450): “[…] there should be a high watchtower, from whence you may at
any time see any commotion in the city.”24 The problem of the street layout in
fortress cities, as described here for Palmanova, was an abiding and controversial
subject in the architectural and fortifications treatises of the Early Modern era. In
the ensuing period this security problem was almost completely shifted from inside
to outside. So as to have the nice straight axes continuing unobstructed to the cen-
tral place of assembly, access to the fortress was made secure through elaborate
outworks and nested gateways.
Trying to provide ultimate security, the European military engineers created
more extensive systems. They engaged in a competition to create the most
secure and sophisticated star-shaped fortifications. However, at the beginning
of the seventeenth century the ascendancy of the Italian engineers waned.
Even the Italian-style fortifications of Palmanova were reinforced and extended
with outworks, including a series of ravelins (1665–83) and lunettes (1805). Such
systems were introduced by German, Dutch, and French engineers such as Sebas-
tien le Prestre de Vauban, the famous military architect of Louis XIV.
One of the most important fortresses of the so-called System of Vauban is the
French fortress city Neuf-Brisach, constructed in Alsace-Lorraine nearly a century
after Palmanova’s inception. This fortified town demonstrates the culmination of
the focus on regularity, exemplifying the theoretical ideal of regular form and
standing as a symbol of security and force that represents the hegemony of the
French King Louis XIV.25 It articulated in a memorable way the absolute regularity
as well as the modern complex system of tenailles, ravelins, and counter-guards
(Figure 10.4). Neuf-Brisach is part of the extensive system designed by Vauban,
which successfully secured the borders of France during the reign of Louis XIV
and manifested his ascendancy within the European state structure.26 “Securitati
perpetuae” ([To] Eternal Security) was the inscription on a medal that Louis
XIV (1638–1715) had minted in 1692 at the conclusion of the gigantic fortress-
building program that he had conceived and that had extended over thirty years.27
Some three hundred fortifications had been designed to protect French soil in these
years of its greatest territorial expansion through conquest. One of the king’s con-
stant concerns was securing the new territory acquired in several wars by protect-
ing the country’s new borders in the north-east and east. As early as the 1540s,
under Francis I (1494–1547), the cities of Vitry-le-Francois, Villefranche and
Maubert-Fontaine formed a first line of defense on the border with the Spanish-
Habsburg Netherlands,28 which in turn incited the building of the fortresses
of Mariembourg, Hesdinfert, Charlemont, and Philippeville in the southern
Netherlands.29 Italian architects still reigned supreme, with Girolamo Marini (circa
1500–53) working for the French king and Donato de Bono (?–1557) in the
10 City, War, and Religion

Figure 10.4 Plan de New Brisach, about 1700. Credit: M. Hilliges.

service of Charles V (1500–58), but they would soon cede their ascendancy to
Dutch, German, and French experts.
Vauban, both a military commander and fortifications expert, was France’s most
famous and influential fortress architect. In the space of 55 years he built innumer-
able fortifications and in France’s north-east created a “barrière de fer” (barrier of
spearheads) consisting of a double chain of fortresses around unprotected parts of
the new border to the Spanish-Habsburg Netherlands. In the Treaty of Rijswijk,
Louis XIV lost the city of Breisach to Germany, so he had Vauban found Neuf-
Brisach on the western bank of the Rhine to secure the river crossing. Neuf-Brisach
is the most significant of Vauban’s works owing to the geometric and aesthetic per-
fection of its layout. In its creative essentials it still adheres to the sixteenth-century
imperative of a fortified city with regular and absolutely symmetrical dimensions.
It was designed as a regular octagon. In contrast to the radial schema of Palmano-
va’s ground plan, Neuf-Brisach was conceived along the lines of that model much
discussed among fortifications theoreticians, namely the orthogonal street layout.
This was the preferred model in France because it allowed for a square central place
of assembly as well as absolute symmetry in the layout of the streets.30
At Neuf-Brisach the blocks of houses are all 50 x 50 meters, and there is an empty
central square with two blocks on each of its four sides, intended as a mustering
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 11

area and parade ground. The marketplace and town hall are on the periphery of the
Place d’Armes. The four city gates lie on the four streets crossing at the Place d’Armes.
The barracks are positioned along the main walls. Just like the arsenal and the pow-
der magazine, they were a standard design of Vauban’s staff.31 The long two-story
barracks buildings each have two three-story pavilions that serve as pavillon d’offi-
ciers (lodgings for officers). Their elevation afforded a view of much of the city and
its fortifications. Moreover, it was from the vantage point of these pavilions that
entire streets of houses could be taken in, which allowed for the surveillance of
troop movements as well as that of individual soldiers.32 The residential buildings
were built according to a strict règlement (architectural regulations) that established
the height of the eaves and cornices. Bays, balconies, and exterior staircases would
have blocked the view and the rapid communications of troops using heavy equip-
ment, so the façades were designed with as few projecting elements as possible.
Even today the windows are in uniform rows and only very shallow cornices break
up the otherwise mostly smooth walls of the residential buildings.33 The baroque
urban body of Neuf-Brisach was regulated and disciplined, just as the troops and
individual soldiers of the French army were. These ordered and regulated struc-
tures of the street layout and the public space thus not only lent beauty (grâce)
to the city in terms of geometrical and mathematical proportions but also symbo-
lized the order and stability of the city’s social structures.34 It was by means of
an elaborate star-shaped fortification system that the city’s inner stability was
outwardly consolidated.35 Fortified cities like Palmanova and Neuf-Brisach repre-
sented an ordered, modern, and disciplined state – they incarnated the modern
body politic like no other structures of the period.
In its complexity and crystalline star-shaped structure, the bastioned circuit of
fortifications that was Neuf-Brisach illustrated advancements in the modern
system of defense, which attained its zenith in the late seventeenth century with
Vauban’s fortresses. The impressive plan of Neuf-Brisach shows the ring of forti-
fications, which consisted of three successive defensive zones. Facilitating the
placement of long-range guns was an inner wall with eight tower-like pentagonal
bastions and additional backward-staggered curtain walls. A middle defensive
zone consisted of various outworks such as counter-guards, demi-lunes, tenailles,
and ravelins situated in a dry ditch. The outer defensive zone consisted of the
gently rising rampart, the glacis, and a covered way for the infantry. The city gates
were separately secured by the sequence of a tenaille, a ravelin, and a counter-
guard. The defensive works projected far into the forefront of the city, and
surrounding the city like a halo of light was a complicated star pattern created
by staggered separate fortifications. As depicted in designs, bird’s-eye views or
models, not only did these symmetrically and elaborately constructed fortresses
fascinate contemporaries but the precisely calculated crystalline structure of the
fortress-stars also became a symbol of indestructibility. Similar to an artfully
cut diamond, the polygonal fortress-stars were the quintessence of mathematical
and aesthetic perfection.
12 City, War, and Religion

Fortifications and Architecture

The fascination generated by the star-shaped design for fortified towns was also felt
by the so-called architettura civile of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
architect’s imagination was above all stimulated by the geometric ground plan
and the “good proportions” of the bastioned fortifications. Numerous designs of
reputable Italian and northern-European architects testify to an intensive involve-
ment with star-shaped and polygonal ground plans that were adopted as symbols of
absolute order and mastery.36 The palazzo in fortezza (the fortified palace) in par-
ticular is a building project that clearly impacted the lordly style of architecture
(autocratic architecture) of the early modern period.37 Often the basic square or
rectangular blocks were furnished with bastion-type turrets at their corners; it
was rare that architects would experiment with a pentagonal, pincer-shaped, or
even star-shaped plan. Palaces like the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola, which was
conceived by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507–73), the palace-project in Kassel
(1700), or Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach’s (1693–1742) project of a Land-
Gebäude (1721) are notable exceptions.38 In any event, most of these designs were
confined to the paper on which they were sketched. Only Caprarola was built
(completed in 1566) and is therefore deserving of special attention.39 Vignola’s pen-
tagonal palace rises up from a pentagonal fortification base with five bastions and
embraces a circular inner courtyard. The bastion at the point of the pentagon is a
keep. The fortified base of the palace was designed and executed by Antonio da
Sangallo the Younger. This was the very first built pentagonal fortress and was fol-
lowed only a short while later by arguably the most famous design by the same
architect, namely the Fortezza da Basso in Florence. The fitting out of the fortifica-
tions in Caprarola for such an imposing palace polygon was first put to paper by
Sienese architect Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–1536) and then given its final form by
Vignola starting in 1559.40 It was through adoption of the pentagonal form for the
palace over the massive substructure of the fortifications that Vignola was able to
achieve a lordly architectural structure of the first rank for Alessandro Farnese
(1545–92) and obtain a novel spatial presence for the structure.
This extraordinary concept was also adopted in its broad outlines by the Kassel
palace project, which was designed for the Karlsaue under the Landgraf Karl
(1654–1730) around 1700 – even though in this case a high domed tower in the
middle of the circular inner court replaced the Caprarola keep. The pentagon, with
its acutely jutting bastions, is surrounded by a broad moat, and accentuating the
layout’s star shape is the surrounding footway, which follows the outline of the
covered way. The five portals have tenailles in front, similar to the fortified cities
like those of Vauban. But the defensive function – which in Caprarola is vouchsafed
by the cannon platforms and loop holes – is here wholly subordinated to the sym-
bolic and decorative aspects. Showing this most clearly are the garden facilities,
with their floral borders located on the bastions.41 But the fortification function
of the polygonal platforms, which in Peruzzi’s sketches was still suggested through
Figure 10.5 Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Prospect eines Land-Gebäudes, Entwurff einer historischen Architecture,
Book 4, Plate XX, Leipzig 1725, Credit: Getty Research Institute.
14 City, War, and Religion

the firing lines and embrasures, played no serious role in the design of villas and
palaces, for the open façades with their generous loggias seemingly contradicted
any claims to putting up a vigorous defense.42 In fact, only very few villas and
palaces could actually be defended from their bastions. The corner bastions of
the castle-villas and palaces were indeed due to conceptions of security that found
their expression in modern forms of defense and other symbols of preparedness –
but their fortification function was not the main priority. The corner bastions were
elevated to a purely aesthetic and lordly level and stylized to express a “monumen-
tal form of dignity.”43
Austrian architect Fischer von Erlach’s design of the Land-Gebäude is very sim-
ilar. With its star-shaped layout and circumferential path, with its broad moat and
serrated glacis, it exhibits modern forms of fortification so as to suggest security and
preparedness. A small skirmish of cavalry in the lower left corner of the picture is
included so as to emphasize the structure’s nature as an architectura militaris. Yet the
essential aspect of the design is the beauty of its geometric proportions, discernible
in the layout. But this beauty is only visible from an aerial perspective – that is, on
the model or on paper.
It was for precisely this reason that the semantic armament of the gateways and
the façades of modern palaces were of particular importance. Here too was a new
“decorative” semantic system that not only enriched the connotations of the cen-
turies-old medieval defense metaphors and insignias of the ruler but even in some
instances wholly replaced them.44 The apotropaic effect of medieval saintly figures
and images of Mary on the city walls soon appeared insufficient as the defensive
and intimidating function for high walls and gateways. After the triumph of the
cannon a new canon of forms had to be developed that underscored the strength
of modern walls at the visual level as well as promising security.45 The fact that this
canon of forms was also adopted in the construction of palaces is, at least in Italy, to
be understood with respect to the stabilization of social orders and the consolida-
tion of royal and other noble power.
The Palazzo Baronale D’Amely in Melendugno, near Otranto, is a largely
neglected but memorable example of this kind of fortified palace
(Figure 10.6).46 Pompeo Paladini, Baron of Melendugno and Lizzanello, commis-
sioned the building of his residence in 1550. The architect was the Neapolitan Gian-
giacomo dell’Acaya (circa 1500–72), who in 1522 had begun his work to develop
the Borgo di Segine on the family property into a regular fortified city with a cas-
tello.47 With its completion in 1536 the planned city, which established Dell’Acaya’s
fame, was renamed Acaya. From 1537 to 1551, Dell’Acaya was one of emperor
Charles V’s fortification engineers. In this period he built the castelli in L’Aquila
and Lecce as well as the fortifications of Lecce, Capua, and Crotone. On the coast
of southern Italy he constructed numerous fortifications and castles to fend off the
Ottoman invasion and encroachments of the corsairs (corsari barbareschi). Under
these uncertain political conditions in Puglia, construction of the new palace in
Melendugno around 1550 was meant to be an expression of the steadfastness
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 15

Figure 10.6 Melendugno, Palazzo Baronale d’Amely. Credit: M. Hilliges.

and defensive readiness of the Christian family Paladini. In choosing Giangiacomo

Dell’Acaya to design the palace, Pompeo Paladini was employing a master fortifi-
cations builder who had also proven his mettle as a civil architect by designing the
ospedale dello Spirito Santo, various Palaces, and the triumphal arch of Charles V in
Lecce. It was with the baronial palace in Melendugno that Dell’Acaya conceived a
wholly unusual fortified palace. A square or rectangular main block is completely
lacking; rather, the building is joined together solely through a series of bastion
points, so that a pentagonal star shape is the result. A deep ditch spanned by a draw-
bridge surrounds the structure, and, similar to Fischer von Erlach’s design, it traces
the form of a star. The bastion and star form, as well as the façade itself, exhibit the
patron’s desire to furnish his palace with the most up-to-date forms of defense. The
wall of the piano nobile rises vertically above an inward-sloping plinth. The transi-
tion from the slope to the vertical wall is hidden by a cordone, a belt course, prima-
rily used on fortress walls.48 According to Francesco di Giorgio Martini, the convex
cornice should be mounted beneath the ancones of the wall walk so as to hinder the
placement of ladders for scaling the fortress walls.49 But the cordoni had already
been used by Francesco di Giorgio himself as a mere decorative element that
emphasized the transition from the high slope to a vertical wall while at the same
time disguising the disruption in the line. The force constitutive character of the
16 City, War, and Religion

Figure 10.7 Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Sassocorvaro, Rocca Ubaldesca, 1476. Credit:
M. Hilliges.

cordoni can be seen in the memorable Rocca Ubaldesca of Sassocorvaro, erected

circa 1476, an early work of Francesco di Giorgio (Figure 10.7).50 That side of
the castle facing away from the city is protected at each corner by a turret. Between
these turrets something similar to the prow of a ship, or prora (also termed a mastio)
thrusts into the foreground.51
Francesco di Giorgio’s imposing and almost sculptural structure along with its
zoomorphic forms has given rise to numerous interpretations.52 Above the steeply
pitched slope the castle’s massive walls are encircled by four cordoni that gird the
vertical walls like belts. The intervals of the cordoni decrease as they rise in order to
increase the rings’ stabilizing effects. The cordoni enhance the overall impression of
strength and stability and as a design motif form an optic contrast to the structure’s
upward-rising main body. The palaces that were built as part of the city of Ferrara’s
expansion are a prime example of how by the end of the fifteenth century the cor-
doni cornices had largely lost their fortification function in fending off ladders and
were increasingly becoming mere symbols of strength and firmness. But even in
modern fortified structures, the cordoni cornices remained one of the most impor-
tant design elements in fortress walls. They were adopted as a decorative element
and symbol of one’s willingness and ability to defend oneself; but modern bastion
fortifications had absolutely no use for them in their original function. In the
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 17

chapter titled Degli ornamenti in his well-known fortifications treatise, Giovan

Battista Belluzzi, one of the most important military architects of the sixteenth
century, not only described the construction of fortress walls – guidelines that were
authoritative well into the eighteenth century – but the ornaments suitable to
them.53 In an appended drawing, Belluzzi presented five cordoni variati as decora-
tive elements marking the transition from the slope to the vertical (a piombo) for-
tress wall.54 Belluzzi described the cordoni as pure ornamentation whose primary
function was to horizontally subdivide and articulate the long fortification wall.
The massive convex stone band can be varied by a range of cylindrical bars and
smooth cornice strips. They were thus carried forward as pure ornament in the
construction of modern fortress walls, and knowledge of its original fortification
function was gradually lost.55
In Melendugno the cordone was executed as a decorative termination to the
inward-sloping foot of the wall and as a purely symbolic form. But the sloping angle
and the cordone as well as the medieval-looking machicolations (piombatoi)
above the windows emphasize the defensive character of the baronial palace. In
addition, on the parapet that tops the structure, there are four cannonballs – martial
decorative elements that were discussed among fortifications theoreticians as meta-
phors for strength and firmness as well as an apotropaic symbol.56 Gabriello Busca
(circa 1540–1605), son of a Milanese weapons caster, offered clear guidelines as to
cannonballs as an apotropaic motif. Busca was a military engineer and general in
service of the Spanish governor of Milan, and in his 1601 treatise Dell’Architettura
Militare he publicly shared all the practical knowledge he had acquired in his long
military career.57 In the chapters on gateway construction and trophies, Busca
explicitly describes the mounting of cannonballs on the exterior of walls as an estab-
lished method of proclaiming triumph and signaling to enemies that any effort to
pierce the walls would be in vain.58 In closing any breaches in the defensive struc-
ture that had been caused by cannonballs during a siege, these same cannonballs
were then integrated into the stonework so as to commemorate the event and as
trophies demonstrating that the walls had withstood the enemy’s assault.59 Numer-
ous examples of cannonballs integrated into the masonry still exist, both south and
north of the Alps.60
A particularly impressive example is the Danzig arsenal built between 1600 and
1602, in a period of remarkable community building activity (Figure 10.8).61 This
imposing military structure holds a special status because it satisfies both the
demands of a functional military building and those of an edifice designed to rep-
resent the privilege and defensive sovereignty of the city itself.62 The ground floor
is a wide hall with numerous supporting columns and was reserved for the large
cannons; the two upper floors contained other weaponry and munitions. This
rather straightforward arrangement was fully in accord with the functional
demands of the building. The façades of the arsenal, on the other hand, are lavishly
decorated in an unprecedented fashion. Inspired by the instructional books of Hans
Vredeman de Vries (1527–1609), the stepped gables and the portal frames are
18 City, War, and Religion

Figure 10.8 Danzig, The Arsenal, 1600–1602. Credit: M. Hilliges.

encrusted with scrollwork, obelisks, and sculptures. Martial motifs such as warrior
busts, eagle heads, and cannon friezes indicate the building’s original military func-
tion and are symbols of strength and defensive preparedness, while lion and demon
masks serve an apotropaic function. Integrated into the arsenal’s western façade are
cannonballs of various sizes and in irregular array. Just like the lion and demon
masks, the cannonballs were planned from the very beginning and placed into
the façade.63 The conspicuously random distribution and various sizes of the can-
nonballs would indicate that someone had read Gabriello Busca’s methods in this
regard, the cannonballs merely simulating the results of a bombardment, their
arrangement intended to illustrate the staunchness of walls that had survived a
fictional shelling unscathed. It was through the integration of real balls that the
destructive power of modern cannon – the “diabolic invention” of which Francesco
di Giorgio spoke in his treatise – could be aesthetically harnessed. The
power of the cannonballs was transferred to the walls into which they had been
integrated and thus symbolized the solidity and stability of the walls – and not infre-
quently the solidity and stability of the ruling power that was being defended by
these walls.
This motif of firmness and solidity was still common currency into the eight-
eenth century. The French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728–99) described
the depiction of firmness in the construction of monumental gates by drawing
on an image of strength – without referring to Busca or other fortress engineers.
Instead he criticized the urban architecture of the fortification engineers in the last
centuries:
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 19

The engineers who have built city entrances were satisfied with walls thick enough to
protect the inhabitants from artillery. In so doing they had accomplished their task;
but they did not give any impression of strength, as I think they should have done,
even though this strictly belongs to civil architecture.64

These lines from Boullée’s theoretical writings, with regard to city gateways,
convey information as to the form that these should have and the function they
should perform.65 Only strong, firm walls can protect the city’s denizens – but
the walls and gates must also convey an impression of fastness. Boullée’s architec-
tural theory held the metaphorical impact of a structure to be essential.66 It was in
this sense that not only the strength of the walls but also the decoration adorning
those walls and their portals served in allowing the architecture to speak (architec-
ture parlante). The series of warriors with defensive shields on the stylobate of Boul-
lée’s gate designs are also to be understood as symbolic references,67 like trophies
and instruments of war, among these also cannonballs, which he explicitly men-
tions in his description of the fortified city gate:

My various city gates consist of walls flanked by Towers. The basement of one of
them is made of supplies of Cannon Balls under Trophies made of the arms of Giant
warriors. The arch, or rather the archivolts, are made of gun barrels.68

As an architect, Boullée saw symbols of firmness such as trophies, cannonballs,

and other weaponry as being a specific and reinforcing means of conveying an
image of solidity and strength. The revolutionary events of the fifteenth century,
which went hand in hand with the changed modes of warfare, had an impact on the
architectural language of the sixteenth century in greater measure than has hitherto
been acknowledged. And it was not only the architettura militare such as arsenals,
barracks, and city gates that functioned as vehicles of the modern design vocabu-
lary; the changed forms also established themselves in the building of sacred and
palatial edifices. Indeed, the military canon of forms that dictated a lordly and over-
powering style was particularly served by palace and castle architecture of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries. It is only when we comprehend the construction
of fortresses in this era as a field of experimentation for aesthetic innovations that
we can properly grasp the importance of the symbolism of firmness for the Ren-
aissance and its architectural language.

Notes

This chapter is based to a large extent on my PhD thesis that was published in 2011. Marion
Hilliges, Das Stadt- und Festungstor: Fortezza und Sicurezza – semantische Aufrüstung im 16.
Jahrhundert (Humboldt-Schriften zur Kunst- und Bildgeschichte, 16), Berlin: Gebrüder
Mann, 2011.
20 City, War, and Religion

1. For translations into English and English language corrections, many thanks to Kevin
McAleer and Jasmine Cloud.
2. Translation into English by Marion Hilliges. “Ma li moderni ultimamente hanno tro-
vato uno instrumento di tanta violenza, che contro a quello non vale gagliardia, non
armi, non scudi, non fortezza di muri, […]. E certamente tutte le altre macchine antiche
per cagione di questa potentissima chiamata bombarda vane e superflue si possono
apellare. […] Onde non senza qualche ragione si può concludere […] doversi chiamare
diabolica invenzione et opera che umana.” Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di
architettura, ingegneria e arte militare, ed. Corrado Maltese (Milan: Edizioni Il Polifilo,
1967), 417–18.
3. Simon Pepper, “Siege Law, Siege Ritual, and Symbolism of City Walls in Renaissance
Europe,” in City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective, ed. James D. Tracy
(Cambridge: University Press, 2000), 573–604.
4. One famous example is the modernization of the medieval walls of Florence in 1526,
when Pedro da Navarra proposed to modify the high towers of the walls built by
Arnolfo di Cambio. Pepper, “City Walls,” 585, and Stanislaus von Moos, Turm und Boll-
werk: Beiträge zu einer politischen Ikonographie der italienischen Renaissancearchitektur
(Zurich: Atlantis-Verlag, 1974), 166–8.
5. For the modernization of medieval walls and the new horizontal urban extension, see
Marion Hilliges, “Der Stadtgrundriss als Repräsentationsmedium in der frühen
Neuzeit,” in Aufsicht – Ansicht – Einsicht: Neue Perspektiven auf die kartographie der
Schwelle zur frühen Neuzeit, ed. Tanja Michalsky, Felicitas Schmieder and Gisela Engel,
(Berlin: trafo, 2009), 351–67; Christof Baier and Ulrich Reinisch, “Schusslinie, Sehstrahl
und Augenlust: Zur Herrschaftskultur des Blickens in den Festungen und Gärten des
16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Visuelle Argumentationen die Mysterien der Repräsentation und
die Berechenbarkeit der Welt., ed. Horst Bredekamp and Pablo Schneider (Munich: Fink,
2006), 46; and Claudia Conforti, La città del tardo Rinascimento (Rome: Laterza, 2005),
46–56.
6. See Christof Baier and Marion Hilliges, “Bastion – quasi prora: Analogiebildung und
Formübertragung in der Defensivbaukunst bei Alberti, Francesco di Giorgio und Leo-
nardo,” In situ 2 (2010): 203–16.
7. Carlo Theti, Discorsi delle fortificazioni: espugnationi e difese delle città e altri luoghi (Ven-
ice: De Franceschi, 1589), 3.
8. Baier and Hilliges, “Bastion– quasi prora,” 203–16; Ulrich Reinisch, “Angst, Rationali-
sierung und Sublimierung: Die Konstruktion der bastionierten, regulären Festung als
Abwehr von Angstzuständen,” in Festungsbau. Geometrie, Technologie, Sublimierung, ed.
Bettina Marten, Ulrich Reinisch, Michael Korey (Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 269–313.
9. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,
1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1989 [1988]), 40–5.
10. Stephan Hoppe, “Die nichtmathematische Festung und ihr medialer Untergang,” in
Festungsbau. Geometrie, Technologie, Sublimierung, ed. Bettina Marten, Ulrich Rein-
isch, Michael Korey (Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 86–104; Wolfgang Schäffner, “Dia-
gramme der Macht. Festungsbau im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” in Politische
Räume, Stadt und Land in der Frühneuzeit, ed. Cornelia Jöchner (Berlin: Akademie
Verlag, 2003), 133–44.
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 21

11. See also Alex Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre, “Lines of Vision. Lines of Fire: The Role of Anal-
ogy and Image Cognition in Designing the Renaissance Bastion,” in Das Bauwerk und
die Stadt, ed. Wolfgang Böhm, Essays for Eduard F. Sekler (Vienna: Böhlau, 1994),
305–18.
12. For the representation lines and the new design solution by Leonardo, see Alex Tzonis
and Liane Lefaivre, “Lines of fire,” 309–11, and Christof Baier, “Goede Regel op
onvolkomen oorden: Über Bewegungslinien und ihren Gebrauch in diagrammatischen
Entwurfsverfahren bei Leonardo da Vinci und Simon Stevin,” in Diagrammatik der
Architektur, ed. Dietrich Boschung, Julian Jachmann (Munich: Fink, 2013), 18–43.
13. “Io dico che fortificare una città vi occorre la materia e la forma, che lo ingegno dell’-
huomo se approva per la forma delle sue mura, e non per la grossezza di quelle […],”
quoted in Andrea Pirinu, “Il disegno dei baluardi cinquecenteschi nell’opera dei fratelli
Palearo Fratino. La piazzaforte di Alghero” (PhD diss., Università degli Studi di
Cagliari, 2009/2010), 6, (accessed Febuary 28, 2013). http://veprints.unica.it/548/
1/PhD_Andrea_Pirinu.pdf.
14. Gisela Leisse, “Geometrie und Stadtgestalt, praktische Geometrie in der Stadt- und
Landschaftsplanung der frühen Neuzeit,” (PhD diss., Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,
Philosophische Fakultät III, e-published on 11.03.2010) edoc-Server Humboldt-Univer-
sität zu Berlin, urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-10011166111-13.
15. See the engravings of Francesco de Marchi, Francesco de Marchi, Della architettura mili-
tare libri tre (Brescia: Dall’Oglio, 1599).
16. Teresa Coletta and Francesca Scattolin Sergio, “Palmanova: la piazza Grande,” in Le
piazze italiane dal Medioevo all’Ottocento: Progettazione, vedute, metrologia, ed. Enrico Gui-
doni (Rome: Kappa 2006), 137–53.
17. Marion Hilliges, “Palmanova und die Besetzung der Mitte,” in Ordnung und Mannigfal-
tigkeit, ed. Christof Baier, André Bischoff, und Marion Hilliges (Weimar: VDG, 2011),
15–16; Silvano Ghironi and Antonio Manno, Palmanova, storia, progetti e cartografia
urbana (1593–1866), cat., Padua 1993, 19–20; Coletta and Scattolin Sergio,
“Palmanova,” 140.
18. For Marc’Antonio Barbaro and his engagement in the project of Palmanova see Deb-
orah Howard, Venice Disputed 1550–1600, Marc’Antonio Barbaro and Venetian Architecture
(New Haven: Yale University Press 2011), 193–211.
19. “[…] la beleza della drittura della strada che risponde da ogni porta alla piazza grande,
et anco sino dall’altro capo della città, che farà maravigliosa vista a chi vi entrerà […]”
quoted in Ghironi and Manno, Palmanova, 24.
20. Lorini argues, “Dove si dovera fare un portico, over loggia con qualche notabil fabrica,
si che standoci sotto li Signori Capi, possino in ogni occorenza vedere tutti essi baluardi,
e a esso centro.” Buonaiuto Lorini, Le fortificationi (Venice: Rampazetto, 1597), 48.
21. Henning Eichberg, “Ordnen, messen, disziplinieren. Moderner Herrschaftsstaat und
Fortifikation,” in Staatsverfassung und Heeresverfassung in der europäischen Geschichte
der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Johannes Kunisch (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 4, 1986),
347–75, 365.
22. Coletta and Scattolin Sergio describe this architecture on the piazza Grande as “loggia
panottico”; see their study, Coletta and Scattolin Sergio, “Palmanova,” 139.
23. The tower was only an invention – a fiction – by Braun and Hogenberg; this fact is
discussed in Hilliges, “Palmanova,” 11–17.
22 City, War, and Religion

24. Quoted in Pepper, “City walls,” 590.

25. For the role of regularity in fortification theory see Jeroen Goudeau, “Safe Strongholds:
Mathematical Fortification and the Fortress of Mathematics,” in Festungsbau: Geometrie,
Technologie, Sublimierungs, ed. Bettina Marten, Ulrich Reinisch, and Michael Korey
(Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 219–35.
26. For Vauban and his fortifications see the exhibition catalog (including the further
bibliography): Vauban, bâtisseur du Roi-Soleil (Paris: Somogy, 2007); Christopher Duffy,
Siege Warfare, vol. 2, The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great, 1660 – 1789,
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985).
27. Vauban, bâtisseur du Roi-Soleil, Cat. 18, 117.
28. Philippe Contamine, Histoire militaire de la France: Des origines à 1715, (Paris: Presses
Univ. de France, 1992), 273–5; David Buisseret, Ingénieurs et fortifications avant Vauban:
l’Organisation d’un service royal aux XVIe–XVIIe siècles (Paris: CTHS, 2002), 27–34.
29. Bernhard Roosens, “Neue Festungsstädte in den alten Niederlanden zur Zeit Karls V.
und Philipps II. Mariembourg, Hesdinfert, Charlemont & Philippephille,” in Festungs-
bau: Geometrie, Technologie, Sublimierung, ed. Bettina Marten, Ulrich Reinisch, Michael
Korey (Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 134–46.
30. “La forme de la place du marché et alignements des rues demeureront à la discretion de
celuy qui bastira: toutefois ie la desireroye qadrangulaire, d’autant que les meilleurs
architectes ont tousiours preferé la commodité de l’angle droict de la principale place
et des bastiments des carrefours, à la beauté et simmetrie d’un dessein.” Errard 1604B,
Book II. Chapter 2, quoted in Judith Schlereth, “Von der place d’armes zur Place
Royale,” in Festungsbau: Geometrie, Technologie, Sublimierung, ed. Bettina Marten, Ulrich
Reinisch, Michael Korey (Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 314–25.
31. Pepper, Simon, “Ville idéale – ville ex nihilo – ville militaire,” in Vauban, batisseur du
Roi-Soleil (Paris 2007), 231 and Cat. Nr. 98.
32. Schlereth, “place d’armes,” 318–19.
33. Philippe Truttmann, Fortification, architecture et urbanisme aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
(Thionville: Service Culturel de la Ville, 1975), 61–3.
34. See Schlereth, “place d’armes,” 314–25 and Henning Eichberg, “Geometrie als barocke
Verhaltensnorm,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 4 (1977): 17–50.
35. For the social significance of land and territorial control in seventeenth-century France
see Chandra Mukerji, Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles (Cambridge
[u.a.]: Cambridge University Press 1997), 18–21.
36. Sabine Frommel, “Zum Bautyp des palazzo in fortezza bei Serlio,” in ‘Italienische’
Renaissancebaukunst an Schelde, Maas und Niederrhein: Stadtanlagen, Zivilbauten, Wehran-
lagen, ed. Günter Bers and Conrad Doose (Jülich: Fischer, 1999), 273–300; v. Moos,
Turm und Bollwerk, 132–5; Ulrich Schütte, Das Schloss als Wehranlage. Befestigte
Schloßbauten der frühen Neuzeit im alten Reich (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-
sellschaft, 1994), 223–32.
37. For illustrations of the well-known Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola, see for example the
engraving of Francesco Villamena, in Schütte, Schloss als Wehranlage, 226, as well as the
aerial views in Paolo Portoghesi, Caprarola (Rome: Manfredi, 1996), 22, 23, and Mar-
gherita Azzi Visentini, La villa in Italia (Milan: Electa, 1995), 187.
38. Not to forget the project of a house of the Tyrant Prince; see Frommel, palazzo in
fortezza, 284–92.
 The City at War and the Semantic Armament 23

39. v. Moos, Turm und Bollwerk, 134–5; Richard Tuttle, “Vignola’s Fortified Palaces,” in
‘Italienische’ Renaissancebaukunst an Schelde, Maas und Niederrhein: Stadtanlagen,
Zivilbauten, Wehranlagen, ed. Günter Bers and Conrad Doose (Jülich: Fischer, 1999),
305–15.
40. Tuttle, “Vignola’s Fortified Palaces,” 305–15.
41. There are many examples of castle gardens that were using fortification references, such
as the Castle Ecouen (about 1550) and Chenonceau (garden and bridge 1551) in France,
as well as the garden of Enghien in Belgium (1630–1665). For gardens and fortifications,
see Christof Baier, “Buchsbaumbastionen: Architectura militaris in der Gartenkunst des
17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Festungsbau: Geometrie, Technologie, Sublimierung, ed. Bet-
tina Marten, Ulrich Reinisch, Michael Korey (Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 341–64.
42. See v. Moos, Turm und Bollwerk, 132.
43. “monumentalen Würdeform,” v. Moos, Turm und Bollwerk, 135.
44. See Sebastiano Serlio and his recommendations for the palace of the condottiero in his
Book on Architecture (Book VI), Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks, trans. Sebastiano Serlio on
Architecture: Volume II (New Haven: Yale University Press 2001), 26–9.
45. See my study on the semantic armament of the Renaissance city gate, Hilliges, Stadt-
und Festungstor, (2011).
46. The Palazzo Baronale d’Amely is only mentioned in Mario Cazzato, Guida ai castelli
pugliesi: La provincia di Lecce. Le guide verdi (Galatina: Congedo, 1997), 93–8.
47. For the architectural uvre of Dell’Acaya, see Francesco D’Ercole, “Segni del rinasci-
mento nella Puglia cinquecentesca: La figura e le opere di Giangiacomo Dell’Acaya,” in
Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura, N.S. 33.1999 (2001): 21–34.
48. For the cordone see Hilliges, Stadt- und Festungstor, 43–9.
49. The essence of the defense strategy is the repulse of bombards, ladders, or other instru-
ments of war, as Francesco di Giorgio Martini mentioned in his Trattati, “…dalle mac-
chine delle bombarde o scalamenti o altri stromenti bellici.” Francesco di Giorgio,
Trattati, 3.
50. See Nicolas Adams, “La Rocca Ubaldesca di Sassocorvaro,” in Francesco di Giorgio archi-
tetto, ed. Francesco Paolo Fiore and Manfredo Tafuri (Milan: Electa 1994), 211–17, and
Hilliges, Stadt- und Festungstor, 43–9, figure 32 and plate 3.
51. For the idea of “prora” used by Alberti see Baier and Hilliges, “Bastion – quasi
prora,” 206–08.
52. Some authors compare the plan of the castle with a turtle, an idea of a war machine first
mentioned by Valturio. Adams, "La rocca Ubaldesca,” 212 and Giancarlo Miletti,
“La rocca di Sassocorvaro,” in Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura 55/60
(1963): 10–11.
53. “[…], qual si può tollerare in le fabriche di questa sorte,” Belluzzi, ms. Turin, c.50r, see
Daniela Lamberini, Il Sanmarino. Giovan Battista Belluzzi, architetto militare e trattatista
del Cinquecento, Vol. 2 (Florence: Olschki, 2007), 335.
54. “…e facendola di mattoni schietti starà benissimo senza altri ornamenti, o vero
havendo altre pietre che facino bel lavoro et che legassero bene,” Belluzzi, ms. Turin,
c.50r, see Lamberini, Il Sanmarino, 335.
55. Even nowadays the cordone is only mentioned as an element of decoration, see Ales-
sandra Coppa, Galeazzo Alessi: Trattato di fortificazione (Milan: Guerini, 1999), 134.
24 City, War, and Religion

56. Marion Hilliges, “Die Kugel in der Mauer,” in Festungsbau: Geometrie, Technologie, Subli-
mierung, ed. Bettina Marten, Ulrich Reinisch, Michael Korey (Berlin: Lukas, 2012), 326–40.
57. Daniela Lamberini, “Porte di città e fortezze nel dibattito sugli ‘ornamenti’ tra
architetti e ingegneri militari del Cinquecento,” Bollettino degli ingegnieri 35 (1987):
3–7, 4; for his theoretical uvre see Claudia Bonardi Tomesani, “Gli antichi trattati
di area sabauda,” in Fortezze alla moderna e ingegneri militari del ducato sabaudo, ed.
Micaela Viglino Davico (Turin: Omega, 2005), 171–93 and 171–2.
58. “Hora è molto in uso, come fu detto nelle fortezze, che hanno sostenuto batteria nelle
muraglie rovinate, che si ristaurano muragli dentro delle palle, che l’inimico vi hà tirate
dentro; […] in maniera che si veggano al di fuora, per segno della vittoria, & del sforzo
vano de nimici.” Gabriello Busca, Dell’architettura militare (Milan: Bidelli, 1601), 240.
59. “Alle fortezze, che hanno sostenuto batteria, assalti sogliono murare ne’rotti del muro
le palle del’artiglieria, che qui le sono state tirate, quasi come trofei, che rappresentino
la memoria di quel fatto. Et però ne(i) finimenti di così fatte opere si mettono di quelle
grosse palle delle baliste,…” Busca, Dell’architettura militare, 242.
60. For instance the tower “Kiek in de Kök” of the city walls in Tallin and the so called
Kugelturm at the Hardenburg, see Hilliges, Stadt- und Festungstor, 173–5 and Udo Lies-
sem, “Eingemauerte Kugeln – Ein apotropäisches Phänomen,” in Burgen und Schlösser
23 (1982), 73–6.
61. The architect of the arsenal in Danzig is not documented. See Arnold Bartetzky, Das
große Zeughaus in Danzig: Baugeschichte, architekturgeschichtliche Stellung, repräsentative
Funktion, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000), 142–68.
62. Bartetzky, Zeughaus in Danzig, 16–17.
63. Bartetzky, Zeughaus in Danzig, 67.
64. Helen Rosenau, Boullée and Visionary Architecture (London: Academy Ed, 1976), 108.
65. Some of Boullée’s texts, documents and architectural drawings in the Manuscript
Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France were first published by Emile
Kaufmann in 1933. The full edition of his Essai sur l’art was only published in 1953
by Helen Rosenau.
66. Hanno-Walter Kruft, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.
3rd ed, (Munich: Beck, 1991), 177–8.
67. “The entrance gate of which I include a drawing has walls that appear indestructible.
On the stylobate which decorates these walls, I have placed a line of Warriors who
appear to be invincible. […]. I intended these armed warriors on the walls of the city
as a symbol that would say to those looking at them: these walls are nothing, but
beware of the courage of the inhabitants,” quoted in Rosenau, Boullée, 108.
68. Rosenau, Boullée, 108. For the illustration of this project for a fortified city gate, see
Hilliges, Stadt- und Festungstor, 265.

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