FORT 2016 cover - v.1:Fort 2005 - cover 10/09/2016 18:21 Page 1 Fortress Study Group 44 Fort The Fortress Study Group is an international group which aims to advance the education of the public in all aspects of fortifications and their armaments, especially works constructed to mount and resist artillery. It was founded in June 1975 at Pembroke College Oxford, to provide an opportunity for those interested in fortifications to get to know one another, and to publish their research. Membership now stands at over 600, and includes professional architects and historians, retired or serving members of the armed forces, and amateur enthusiasts. Interests range from the earliest provisions for artillery, through 16th century Italian fortifications to Second World War pillboxes and Cold War concrete. Members have been involved in restoration schemes such as Fort Amherst, Harwich Redoubt, Needles Battery, Newhaven Fort and many others in the United Kingdom and around the world. The group produces two publications: FORT, the refereed journal, and Casemate, a magazine which appears three times a year. Each year a Conference is held at a different location in the United Kingdom, with a programme of lectures and visits to local fortifications. Conferences have been held at such locations as Dover, Plymouth, Hull, Portland, Edinburgh, the Isle of Wight, Pembroke, London and Harwich. There is also an annual International Study Tour and the group has in the past visited Gibraltar, the Maginot Line, Malta, The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, USA, France, Denmark, Poland, Rhodes, Bermuda, Germany, Crete, Slovenia and many other places. FORT The international journal of fortification and military architecture 2016 Volume 44 • 2016 Fortress Study Group ISSN 0261-586X FORT 2016 cover - v.1:Fort 2005 - cover 10/09/2016 18:21 Page 2 Front cover: Trogir, St. Mark’s tower (photo: John Harris 2013) Fortress Study Group Back cover: View of the Double-sided Small Casemate on Founded in 1975 to represent the Sivka ridge. Logatec is to the left of the photo. Additional casemates on Sivka are to the front (Matevž Grošelj interests of those actively involved in 2014). see article on p.158 the study of all aspects of fortifications and their armaments, especially works constructed to mount and resist artillery Patron This issue of FORT designed and produced by Stephen Dent. His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO RIBA e-mail: [email protected] Honorary Fellows Printed by Hobbs the Printers Ltd, Totton, Hampshire. Dr Christopher Duffy Tel: 023 8066 4800 Fax: 023 8066 4801 Anthony Kemp Web: www.hobbs.uk.com Margaret Pinsent FORT: the international journal of fortification and military Officers and Committee Members architecture, is a refereed, peer-reviewed academic journal and Chairman: David Page is generally published once a year. Honorary Secretary: John Cartwright ISSN 0261-586X © Fortress Study Group, 2016 Honorary Treasurer: Alan Fyson Fortress Study Group is a registered charity: No. 288790 Membership Secretary: Keith Phillips Honorary Editor of FORT: John Harris Website: www.fsgfort.com Honorary Editor of Casemate: Norman Clark Honorary Picture Editor: Charles Blackwood Review copies of books and all other recent publications/ material should be sent to the Honorary Reviews Editor: Executive Committee: Gil Dowdall-Brown, Langdale, 1 Pelican Lane, Newbury, Richard Ashmore Berkshire. RG1 4NU. e-mail: [email protected] Dave Bassett (IFC Representative) Paul Beckmann Membership enquires and all other correspondence George Dawes concerning the Fortress Study Group should be addressed Alastair Graham-Kerr (Conference Administrator) to the Honorary Secretary: John Cartwright, 49 Hartscroft, Roger J C Thomas Linton Glade, Croydon CR0 9LB e-mail: secretary @fsgfort.com Officers not serving on the Committee: New material for future publication in FORT should be Assistant Editor of FORT: David Lakin addressed to: Book Reviews Editor: Gil Dowdall-Brown John Harris BArch RIBA, 22 Crane Grove, London, N7 8LE An entrance to an anti-tank nest corridor. After some metres, the corridor has caved in and the nest itself is demolished. See article on p. 158 Honorary Librarian: Phil Magrath e-mail: [email protected] To purchase further copies of this edition of FORT, and for Editorial Board for Fort 44: details of availability and contents of back issues please contact John Harris Alistair Graham Kerr, 7 Burgh Castle Marina, Butt Lane, Stephen Dent Burgh Castle, NR31 9PZ. David Lakin Charles Blackwood Miriam Harris FORT 2016 pt.2 - v.2:Layout 1 10/09/2016 18:32 Page 115 FORT • VOLUME 44 • 2016 Transitional Period Style Fortifications in Croatian Historic Countries with Emphasis on Contemporary Croatia Proper and Slavonia Duško Cikaraˇ Introduction architecture. Within an overall Renaissance context and in Fortresses of a particular shape were erected on the a constant search for new and more useful defensive Apennine peninsula in the second half of the fifteenth solutions, the martial skills of the condottieri were century which represent a particular cultural and associated with the talents of various artists in the creative architectural phenomenon in the development of defensive process of improving of those solutions.1 At the same Map of Croatian historical lands, second half of 15 C (Miranda Herceg, 2015.) 115 FORT 2016 pt.2 - v.2:Layout 1 10/09/2016 18:32 Page 116 DUŠKO CIKARA time, the use of particular characteristic elements reflects section - a cordon, which visually made a fortress firmer. the medieval symbolism related to ancient customs of Unlike late Gothic openings in masonry structured façades warfare. (such as the lateral slits of the entrance to the Venetian The design of these fortresses developed as a response fortress Brancaleone from 1457 in conquered Ravenna),4 to the massive introduction into standard use of from the seventh decade the frames of the circular, pear- gunpowder artillery and they are therefore referred to as shaped and keyhole gun ports were carved as monoliths fortresses of the Transitional period.2 Their architecture (all`antica), and therefore the closures of the embrasures was formed by a standard combination of elements. More were in fact the built-in additions.5 Openings of all types thickset (semi-) towers of circular ground plan were raised were embedded in the plane of the façade, and sometimes instead of the high square towers. At first they were taller decorated with the initial letters of the owner. With than curtains, and then, in 1470s, became of equal height diameters customised to the gun calibres, they were placed with them (e g the Rocca at Senigallia).3 Missiles were in various wall zones. They were also formed in the deflected sidelong from the curved wall and caused less scarping zone of fortresses in low-lying land (e g Forlì). damage. Fortresses were built mainly of brick, and one of The top floor with machicolation rests on variously the reasons was its improved elasticity, which weakened formed corbels or brackets.6 In the flooring between the the projectile strikes compared with a rigid stone structure. corbels there are square openings made in a certain The sloped foot of the wall (scarping) protected it against rhythm, for vertical crossbow shooting and for dropping attack by battering. It was separated from the vertical missiles at the attackers. Terraces of fortresses were not planes by a continuous string course with a semi-circular covered initially, and therefore they rested on the vaults. Pesaro, Rocca Costanza, loop gunhole with initials of Costanzo Sforza (above left), secondary use of the same element in the time of his son Giovanni, beginning of 16 C (above right), (photo: author, 2014.); Secondary use of keyhole gun port in the 16 C, Veliki Tabor (below left) (photo: Natalija Vasi/Croatian Conservation Institute, 2009.) and Jastrebarsko (below right) (photo: Jasenko Rasol, 2015.) 116 FORT 2016 pt.2 - v.2:Layout 1 10/09/2016 18:32 Page 117 TRANSITIONAL PERIOD STYLE FORTIFICATIONS IN CROATIAN HISTORIC COUNTRIES The masonry was completed by battlements with merlons from the domain of architectural design, where various of Ghibelline or Guelph version (e g Castel Sant’Angelo artists deliberated the solutions12 to the field of pure in Rome and Ostia). military engineering, where only essential functionality of Although the combination of these elements results materials and shapes mattered. from systematic consideration of functional defence in the According to current knowledge, it seems that the period of massive introduction of firearms as standard in fortresses built in the formative patterns of the Transitional war, the traditional elements that enabled more effective period outside of Italy could be found only in the historical defence in the Middle Ages - machicolation and countries of Croatian. Considering the fact that Croatian battlement - retain their aesthetic or symbolic meaning, art and architecture, which also includes fortresses, has expressing the impregnability of a fortress, and thus the been only exceptionally included in art history reviews of owners’ power and sovereignty.7 Active defence of such Western civilization, in international professional circles it fortresses through vertical and horizontal openings and is hardly known that the fortresses built in that style, apart protection from battering the walls by forming scarping from those on the Apennine peninsula, were raised on the was enough to make them technically unconquerable. eastern Adriatic