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Publication
Le città fortificate nei domini spagnoli delle Fiandre
Book Contribution - Chapter
Fortified Cities in the Spanish Netherlands [Thionville, Groningen, Vlissingen, Maastricht, 1567-1579].
My contributions to the catalogue of the exhibition “Leonardo e il Rinascimento nei Codici napoletani” (Napels, Biblioteca Nazionale, 12 December 2019-13 March 2020) discuss the design of fortifications in the Low Countries in the 16th century and concentrate in particular on five drawings from “Flanders” (i.e. the Spanish Netherlands) preserved in the so-called “codice Tarsia” of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli (Ms XII.D.1). My essay offers first a general overview of the development of military architecture in the 16th-century Low Countries, with particular regard to exchanges with Italy and the use and circulation of fortification drawings, and then focuses on the first years of the Dutch Revolt (1567-1572) and the works in these years of the engineers Francesco Paciotto, Bartolomeo Campi and Jacques van Noyen at Thionville, Vlissingen and Groningen. The related catalogue entries examine in more detail the five drawings in question. The drawing of Thionville (c. 7v) shows an ambitious but never executed design for a new bastioned enceinte with eight bastions, attributable to Bartolomeo Campi or his son Scipio Campi and datable to the years 1568−1579. This design must be interpreted as an alternative to Paciotto’s more austere project of 1567, though it also bears similarities to another design for Thionville attributable to Van Noyen. The drawing of Vlissingen (c. 10v), evidently by the same author as the Thionville drawing, comprises an accurate plan of the eastern part of the town with the old harbour and the new citadel, designed by Bartolomeo Campi in 1571 but never completed. The two drawings of Groningen (c. 4v, c. 6r) carefully depict the city’s fortifications with the new citadel, designed by Bartolomeo Campi and built between 1569 and 1576; one of them (c. 6r) shows also the city’s street pattern and the surrounding countryside. The fifth “Flemish” sheet is a previously unknown drawing (c. 8r b) which I identify here as a partial, unfinished plan of the siege of Maastricht in 1579. This drawing has remained unknown until now because it was used as a support of the well-known drawing in the same album of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome under construction and was rediscovered only after a recent restoration. It represents the southern part of the city of Maastricht (with the Tongersepoort and Sint-Pieterspoort) during the siege led by Alexander Farnese in 1579, showing both the city’s fortifications and the surrounding siege works.
My contributions to the catalogue of the exhibition “Leonardo e il Rinascimento nei Codici napoletani” (Napels, Biblioteca Nazionale, 12 December 2019-13 March 2020) discuss the design of fortifications in the Low Countries in the 16th century and concentrate in particular on five drawings from “Flanders” (i.e. the Spanish Netherlands) preserved in the so-called “codice Tarsia” of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli (Ms XII.D.1). My essay offers first a general overview of the development of military architecture in the 16th-century Low Countries, with particular regard to exchanges with Italy and the use and circulation of fortification drawings, and then focuses on the first years of the Dutch Revolt (1567-1572) and the works in these years of the engineers Francesco Paciotto, Bartolomeo Campi and Jacques van Noyen at Thionville, Vlissingen and Groningen. The related catalogue entries examine in more detail the five drawings in question. The drawing of Thionville (c. 7v) shows an ambitious but never executed design for a new bastioned enceinte with eight bastions, attributable to Bartolomeo Campi or his son Scipio Campi and datable to the years 1568−1579. This design must be interpreted as an alternative to Paciotto’s more austere project of 1567, though it also bears similarities to another design for Thionville attributable to Van Noyen. The drawing of Vlissingen (c. 10v), evidently by the same author as the Thionville drawing, comprises an accurate plan of the eastern part of the town with the old harbour and the new citadel, designed by Bartolomeo Campi in 1571 but never completed. The two drawings of Groningen (c. 4v, c. 6r) carefully depict the city’s fortifications with the new citadel, designed by Bartolomeo Campi and built between 1569 and 1576; one of them (c. 6r) shows also the city’s street pattern and the surrounding countryside. The fifth “Flemish” sheet is a previously unknown drawing (c. 8r b) which I identify here as a partial, unfinished plan of the siege of Maastricht in 1579. This drawing has remained unknown until now because it was used as a support of the well-known drawing in the same album of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome under construction and was rediscovered only after a recent restoration. It represents the southern part of the city of Maastricht (with the Tongersepoort and Sint-Pieterspoort) during the siege led by Alexander Farnese in 1579, showing both the city’s fortifications and the surrounding siege works.
Book: Leonardo e il Rinascimento nei Codici napoletani: Influenze e modelli per l’architettura e l’ingegneria
Pages: 443-456
ISBN:978-88-97644-65-2
Accessibility:Open